Computing Community Consortium Blog

The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.


ARPA-E’s Open Call for “Transformational Energy Technologies”

March 16th, 2012 / in big science, conference reports, policy, research horizons, resources / by Erwin Gianchandani

Earlier this month, the Advanced Projects Research Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) released a $150 million funding opportunity open to all breakthrough energy technologies. Individual awards under the Open FOA will range between $250,000 and $10 million. According to the announcement: To address the challenges imposed by the rapidly evolving global energy market, ARPA-E seeks to support transformational research in all areas of energy R&D, including resource identification, extraction, transportation and use, and energy generation, storage, transmission and use in both the transportation and stationary power sectors. Areas of research responsive to this FOA include (but are not limited to) electricity generation by both renewable and non-renewable means, electricity transmission, storage, and distribution; […]

ACM Names Judea Pearl 2011 Turing Award Winner

March 15th, 2012 / in awards / by Erwin Gianchandani

Hot off the press from ACM this morning: ACM has named Judea Pearl of the University of California, Los Angeles the winner of the 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award for innovations that enabled remarkable advances in the partnership between humans and machines that is the foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pearl pioneered developments in probabilistic and causal reasoning and their application to a broad range of problems and challenges. He created a computational foundation for processing information under uncertainty, a core problem faced by intelligent systems. He also developed graphical methods and symbolic calculus that enable machines to reason about actions and observations, and to assess cause-effect relationships from empirical findings. […]

REMINDER: NSF/CISE Running a CAREER Workshop

March 15th, 2012 / in resources / by Erwin Gianchandani

As we noted in this space last month, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is holding workshops this spring to help young faculty prepare competitive CAREER proposals. Applications for the second workshop — to be held in Tempe, AZ, near the campus of Arizona State University — open today. The deadline to apply is April 23rd, with decisions to be returned within a couple days of that date. According to NSF and the workshop organizers: The workshop intends to provide young faculty members skills in CAREER proposal writing, panel review experience, and opportunities to interact with NSF program directors and recent NSF awardees. The major components of […]

CCC Launches NITRD Symposium Website;
Videos, Slides, Written Summaries of Talks All Available

March 14th, 2012 / in big science, CCC, policy, research horizons, Research News, resources, workshop reports / by Erwin Gianchandani

On Feb. 16th, over 150 Federal officials, Congressional staffers, academic researchers, and industry leaders packed a room overlooking the United States Capitol to mark two decades of coordinated Federal investment in networking and information technology research and development with a daylong symposium exploring progress and prospects in the field. Today, I’m delighted to announce that we are launching a new website with complete materials from this extraordinary day — including videos, photos, slides, and written summaries from the 19 15-minute presentations by leaders of the field, plus a luncheon keynote by former Vice President Al Gore, a longtime champion of information technology R&D, and special remarks by former Congressman Tom […]

DoE Announces EERE Postdoctoral Research Awards

March 13th, 2012 / in big science, research horizons, resources / by Erwin Gianchandani

The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has issued a call for 2012 EERE Postdoctoral Research Awards, intended to provide recent Ph.D. recipients with opportunities to conduct research at universities, national laboratories, and other research facilities. This year’s program builds upon 14 inaugural awardees funded in 2011, and includes at least one research topic that requires a strong computer science or software background. The deadline to submit an award application is May 1, 2012. According to the EERE website: The objective of the EERE Postdoctoral Research Awards is to create the next generation of scientific leaders in energy efficiency and renewable energy by attracting the best scientists and engineers […]

DARPA Director Stepping Down, Heading to Google

March 12th, 2012 / in policy / by Erwin Gianchandani

As our colleagues at CRA’s Policy Blog have covered, Wired.com is out with an exclusive story this afternoon about Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Regina Dugan: Darpa director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon’s premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was “offered and accepted at senior executive position” with the internet giant, according to Darpa spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she couldn’t say no to such an “innovative company,” he adds.   Dugan’s emphasis on cybersecurity and next-generation manufacturing earned her strong support from the White House, winning her praise […]