From our colleague Erwin Gianchandani, at the blog of CRA’s Computing Community Consortium:

Today the Computing Community Consortium is issuing a call for nominations for individuals to serve on the CCC Council for three years beginning January 2012. The deadline for nominations is 11:59pm EST on Nov. 15, 2011. The complete call appears below.

The Computing Community Consortium Seeks Nominations for Council Members

What questions shape our intellectual future? What attracts the best and brightest minds of a new generation? What are the next big computing ideas — the ones that will define the future of computing, galvanize the very best students, and catalyze research investment and public support?

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to answer these questions by identifying major research opportunities for the field and by creating venues for community participation in the process. The CCC supports these efforts through visioning activities such as workshops, through arranging plenary talks or key topics at major venues, through discussions with Federal agencies, and through other community-building activities.

As one recent example, a CCC-funded robotics visioning activity resulted in a definitive report titled “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics,” developed by more than 100 robotics experts from academia and industry. That report eventually served as the basis for a new, multi-agency, $70 million investment in robotics called the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) announced by the Federal government in June 2011.

For complete details about the CCC, including a look at all of our current and ongoing activities, see https://cra.org/ccc and http://cccblog.org/.

The CCC is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under a cooperative agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA). The work of the CCC is carried out by an active and engaged Council, currently chaired by Ed Lazowska (University of Washington) with Susan Graham (University of California-Berkeley) as vice-chair, reporting to CRA’s Board of Directors. The members of the Council are appointed by CRA in consultation with NSF, with staggered three-year terms. In the aggregate, the Council must reflect the full breadth of the computing research community — research area, institutional character, geographic diversity, etc. The CCC is staffed by a full-time director, Erwin Gianchandani.

The CCC’s Nominating Subcommittee invites nominations (including self-nominations) for members to serve on the CCC Council for the next three years. Please send nominations, together with the information below, to ccc-nominations@cra.org by 11:59pm EDT on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. The subcommittee’s recommendations will serve as input to CRA and NSF, who will make the final selection.

1. Name, affiliation, and email address of the nominee.
2. Research interests.
3. Previous significant service to the research community and other relevant experience, with years it occurred (no more than *five* items).
4. A brief biography or curriculum vitae of the nominee.
5. A statement from the nominee of less than one page, supporting his or her nomination by describing his or her ideas for, and commitment to, advancing the work of the CCC in engaging broader communities, finding wider funding sources, and encouraging new research directions. Recall that the CCC needs truly visionary leaders — people with lots of great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work hard to see things to completion.

We look forward to reviewing the nominees!