On Tuesday, June 18th, IBM Research hosted a presentation and panel discussion on the Hill with House Representatives on cognitive computing. According to IBM Research, cognitive computing systems include “systems that learn and interact naturally with people to extend what either man or machine could do on their own.” Essentially, these systems help human experts make better decisions by allowing them to better sift through big data. Cognitive computing systems, or supercomputers, are not programmed to perform functions; rather, “they use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to sense, predict and, in some ways, think.” These systems can draw their own insight from big data. The goal is not necessarily to be the expert, but rather to better aid the human expert by penetrating big data they otherwise cannot.
IBM Research Vice President David McQueeney demonstrated the power of supercomputing through a weather cleanup example. Trees have very predictable growth patterns, and supercomputers can easily sift through tree data in a given location. If a powerful storm such as Hurricane Sandy were to damage an area, for instance, cognitive computing systems could help cities predict which areas will need crews to rebuild power lines based on the tree data. These systems could save millions of dollars for cities. Currently, IBM’s own supercomputer IBM Watson can sift through 1.5 million patient records and give doctors treatment options in seconds (see the power of the IBM Watson below).
Tomorrow, May 21, CRA will host the briefing, “IT for People, Homes and Cities” from 11:15 am to 12:45 pm in Room 2325 of the Rayburn Office Building. The briefing is sponsored by Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN) and Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL).
From smart phones to smart homes to smart cities, IT is increasingly integrated into our physical environment, with data from a variety of sources allowing us to make and execute decisions more intelligently and efficiently. Recent advances in machine learning, sensor networks, big data, visualization, signal processing, and other areas are leading the way to the next generation of new products, experiences and insights.
At the briefing, the speakers will discuss the IT innovation ecosystem, the role of computing research in industry, academia, and government, and the potential societal value and economic impact of emerging research discoveries.
The speakers include: Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation and Head of Microsoft Research USA; Steven E. Koonin, Director, Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University; and Shwetak N. Patel, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington.
CCC ChairEd Lazowska responded to a recent report on STEM jobs and the workforce with an opinion piece in the Seattle Times. The report, Guestworkers in the High Skill US Labor Market by the Economic Policy Institute, was cited in articles in the Washington Post, Seattle Times, and other news outlets calling into question the push for more students to major in STEM fields in college. Ed points out the problem with lumping all STEM workers and graduates in the same group and why computer science, specifically, needs to be separated when looking at jobs.
In the forty minutes of debate on the NITRD reauthorization, Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said, “NIT technologies cut across every sector of our economy and our national defense infrastructure. Our relatively modest 20-year investment in the NITRD program has contributed immeasurably to our economic and national security by enabling innovation and job creation in NIT and providing American students with the skills to fill those jobs. Let’s reauthorize this program today and ensure it remains strong.”
In regards to the cybersecurity bill, Congressman Dan Lipinksi (D-IL) stated, “Just last month, the Director of National Intelligence testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the danger of cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage on crucial infrastructure tops the list of global threats. I believe that we face the possibility of a cyber “Pearl Harbor” that could destroy America’s military or economic security. We have already seen the loss of countless jobs through cyber espionage and we face – and thankfully, so far, we have repelled – much worse attacks every day. It is now more important than ever that we get this legislation across the finish line and onto the President’s desk.”
The Congressional Robotics Caucus held a briefing this morning on the Robotics Roadmap 2.0(PDF), a follow up report to the CCC-led Robotics Roadmap(PDF) published in 2009. Representative Phil Gingrey (R – GA) opened the briefing with remarks about the importance of science and technology to the future of the country and our economy. Bill Thomasmeyer of the Robotics Technology Consortium moderated the briefing.
Henrik Christensen of Georgia Tech and one of the original co-authors of the CCC-led report gave an overview of the roadmap in its second iteration. He noted that there was a 44 percent increase in the sale of manufacturing robotics in the US in 2011. Christensen spoke of the need for robotics in military action, disaster response, medical and rehabilitation settings, and personal robotics for an aging and disabled population. While the first Robotics Roadmap led to the National Robotics Initiative, the US cannot stop there if it wants to be globally competitive going forward. He mentioned a recent 500 million Euro investment in robotics that as well as similar efforts in Korea and China.
Three additional speakers, Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, Pete Wurman of Kiva Systems, and Russ Angold of Ekso Bionics, spoke to their individual companies’ areas. Brooks stated that the source of inventions is academic research and that’s what made the US the leader in robotics when the field was brand new. Rethink Robotics is in manufacturing and he pointed out that robots do not replace workers as many fear but instead augment workers on the job. Wurman spoke to the ability to find efficiencies in logistics and that the growth of Kiva Systems has been primarily driven by the growth of e-commerce. In fact, Wurman said that Amazon purchased Kiva Systems last year after being one of the Kiva customers for several years. Angold had the most visually impactful presentation – he had a paralyzed veteran who put on Ekso Bionics wearable robot that allowed him to stand up and walk. Ekso Bionics was started with a DARPA grant and no has a few dozen wearable robots in rehabilitation facilities around the country and in clinical trials. Angold said that currently the robots are being used with patients with spinal cord injuries but they are working on robots to also help stroke victims.
The presentations of each speaker will be available here shortly.
The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act promotes education, training, awareness, and research in cybersecurity via authorizing of federal research funding, scholarships, and coordination of programs across NITRD agencies. The legislation requires participating agencies, in conjunction with the National Coordinating Office, to develop strategic plans for federal cybersecurity research. It would also prioritize cyberesecurity research at participating agencies such as NSF. A number of amendments were added during the markup to clarify and specify the inclusion of women, veterans, and community colleges in the education and training provisions as well as to require the evaluation of higher education courses and degrees in cybersecurity. There were also amendments to increase the NIST role in research in the security of the IT supply chain and in the science of cybersecurity.
The Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2013 updates the existing NITRD bill and enacts several of the recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Specifically, the bill requires the NITRD agencies to create a five-year strategic plan for the program, and to have the program’s progress periodically reviewed by a committee of IT experts from academia and industry. Like, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, this bill emphasizes education and attracting women and minorities to get degrees in computing fields. It would also examine the use of cloud computing for federally funded research. Fewer amendments were offered on the NITRD bill than the Cybersecurity Enhancement bill and they were mostly to reflect changes and programs that are already being done under the bill, such as the cyberphysical systems program.
The number of new undergraduate computing majors among U.S. computer science departments rose an astonishing 29.2 percent this year, according to new data released today by the Computing Research Association.
The data appears in Computing Degrees and Enrollment Trends, a special report from the 2011-2012 CRA Taulbee Survey of the organization’s member departments. Among schools who responded to the survey both this year and last, the increase was 22.8 percent.
Overall Ph.D. production in computing programs reported in the survey reached its highest level ever, with 1,929. This represents an 8.2 percent increase over 2010-11. Among those departments reporting both this year and last year, the number of total doctoral degrees increased by 5.2 percent. More than 55 percent of those new degree holders took jobs in industry, with the remainder finding academic or government positions, or self-employment. Only 0.4 percent reported unemployment. The survey also found that bachelor’s degree production in computing fields increased by 19.8 percent overall, and 16.6 percent among those departments that reported both years.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by the CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or information. CRA today released its Computing Degrees and Enrollment Trends, 2011-12 report. The full Taulbee dataset will be released to the public in May and published in CRA’s Computing Research News.
In the aftermath of the GSA Las Vegas conference scandal, the White House issued restrictions on travel and conference spending (PDF) which we discussed here previously. Congress is once again wading into the issue with a House Government Oversight Committee hearing featuring three government witnesses: The Honorable Rush Holt, Representative for the 12th Congressional District of New Jersey, The Honorable Danny Werfel, Controller, U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and Ms. Cynthia Metzler, Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. General Services Administration.
While the overall hearing focused on overall government spending and GSA spending on travel and conferences, Congressman Holt specifically addressed scientific conferences. He noted that restrictions on government scientists attendance of conferences can hinder scientific collaboration and innovation. He stated that spending on research and scientists is not wasteful spending but rather that spending is an important investment.
Werfel noted that the restrictions had been increased to require agency spending on travel and conferences to be 30 percent below 2010 levels by 2013 and that agencies maintain that level through 2016. He noted that mission critical activities are protected from these required cuts so scientific collaboration should not be hindered.
Ranking Member Steve Lynch (D-MA) noted that in the House bill that would codify the OMB guidance, H.R. 313, agencies are limited to sending 50 people or less to a conference and that this is problematic for large scientific conferences such as the International AIDS Conference that sometimes has a thousand government scientists in attendance. He wondered if this type of limit was harming the efficacy and value of the conferences. Werfel stated that yes, that was a concern and allowing the agency heads to make the executive decision about how many people to send to maximize the agency mission would help alleviate that. He also noted that sometimes having higher numbers of employees attend one conference rather than having smaller numbers attend different conferences can create greater efficiencies of scale and cost savings.
Ranking Member Lynch also submitted a letter from AAAS and other science organizations with the scientific communities concerns for the record. CRA joined with other members of the computing community – USACM, IEEE-USA, and SIAM – in submitting a letter (PDF) to Congressional leaders and Administration officials last fall outlining concerns with the restrictions.
The video of the hearing and the written testimony of the three witnesses can be found here.
In a nod toward the need to increase STEM interest among K – 12 students, Congress has passed House Resolution 77, the Academic Competition Resolution of 2013. The resolution establishes an academic STEM competition for students in Congressional districts. The initial competition is an App Challenge – students must build an app for mobile, tablet, and computer platforms.
The “findings” of Congress listed in the resolution include:
STEM fields have been, and continue to be, vital to a healthy and thriving United States.
STEM fields are even more important in a world and nation of continuous and rapid technological advancements and needs.
STEM fields are necessary to ensure a qualified national workforce and growing American economy, and a recent study predicted that one-half of all STEM jobs in 2020 will be related to the field of computer science.” And “A recent study found that only 9 States allowed computer science courses to count toward high school students’ core graduation requirements.
…
The global economy demands that the United States continue to lead the world in innovation, creativity, and STEM-related research.
…
It is appropriate for the House of Representatives to institute a new and worthwhile competition to encourage students to participate in STEM studies and research.
Rapid technological change means the competition will evolve over time and will challenge students in specialized areas of science, technology, engineering and math to ensure maximum participation. Because of the importance of computer science it would be appropriate to initially challenge students to develop so-called `apps’ for mobile, tablet, and computer platforms.
Gaither testified first and spoke to the need for interdisciplinary research as computing is an integral piece of other research areas. She also talked about how research isn’t just about end products and discoveries but about the researchers that are supported and the opportunities researchers have because of federal funding.
McKinley testified about the fact that computing is reaching some fundamental limits and that research is needed to make breakthroughs to overcome those limits. She noted that while the US is still leading the world in computing research, other nations are investing more and if we do not keep up, we will lose our competitive advantage. McKinley also addressed the diversity problem in computing and noted that we need far more graduates than we currently have and that we will have to attract more women and minorities if we want to have enough people to fill the needs of the future in computing.
Lazowska spoke about the NITRD program’s history and the role of computing in the US economy. He showed an NRC chart on research and IT sectors with billion dollar markets. Lazowska also talked about the need to integrate security into the building of systems and not added on at the end as a defensive measure when questioned about cybersecurity by Congressman Steven Stockman (R-TX). Stockman, who credits support from the fiscally-conservative Tea Party for his election, had the quote of the hearing, when after having pressed Lazowska for an order-of-magnitude estimate on how much additional investment in fundamental cyber security research would move the needle seemed surprised that the number PITAC requested back in 2005 was “only” $90 million. “Well, I’m interested in getting you billions, not millions,” he said, indicating he was very concerned about the U.S. vulnerability to cyber attack.
The Subcommittee members were very interested in how to tackle the education problem in computing as well as how they could help researchers address cybersecurity moving forward.
Written testimony and a webcast of the hearing can be found here. Additionally, a PDF of Lazowska’s oral testimony can be found here.
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IBM Hosts “Cognitive Computing” Panel to Discuss Power of Supercomputers
/In: Policy, R&D in the Press, Research, Security /by Peter HarshaOn Tuesday, June 18th, IBM Research hosted a presentation and panel discussion on the Hill with House Representatives on cognitive computing. According to IBM Research, cognitive computing systems include “systems that learn and interact naturally with people to extend what either man or machine could do on their own.” Essentially, these systems help human experts make better decisions by allowing them to better sift through big data. Cognitive computing systems, or supercomputers, are not programmed to perform functions; rather, “they use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to sense, predict and, in some ways, think.” These systems can draw their own insight from big data. The goal is not necessarily to be the expert, but rather to better aid the human expert by penetrating big data they otherwise cannot.
IBM Research Vice President David McQueeney demonstrated the power of supercomputing through a weather cleanup example. Trees have very predictable growth patterns, and supercomputers can easily sift through tree data in a given location. If a powerful storm such as Hurricane Sandy were to damage an area, for instance, cognitive computing systems could help cities predict which areas will need crews to rebuild power lines based on the tree data. These systems could save millions of dollars for cities. Currently, IBM’s own supercomputer IBM Watson can sift through 1.5 million patient records and give doctors treatment options in seconds (see the power of the IBM Watson below).
Read more →
Briefing Tomorrow: IT for People, Homes and Cities
/In: Events, Policy /by Shar SteedTomorrow, May 21, CRA will host the briefing, “IT for People, Homes and Cities” from 11:15 am to 12:45 pm in Room 2325 of the Rayburn Office Building. The briefing is sponsored by Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN) and Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL).
From smart phones to smart homes to smart cities, IT is increasingly integrated into our physical environment, with data from a variety of sources allowing us to make and execute decisions more intelligently and efficiently. Recent advances in machine learning, sensor networks, big data, visualization, signal processing, and other areas are leading the way to the next generation of new products, experiences and insights.
At the briefing, the speakers will discuss the IT innovation ecosystem, the role of computing research in industry, academia, and government, and the potential societal value and economic impact of emerging research discoveries.
The speakers include: Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation and Head of Microsoft Research USA; Steven E. Koonin, Director, Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University; and Shwetak N. Patel, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington.
Lazowska Opinion Column in Seattle Times
/In: Computing Education, People /by MelissaNorrCCC Chair Ed Lazowska responded to a recent report on STEM jobs and the workforce with an opinion piece in the Seattle Times. The report, Guestworkers in the High Skill US Labor Market by the Economic Policy Institute, was cited in articles in the Washington Post, Seattle Times, and other news outlets calling into question the push for more students to major in STEM fields in college. Ed points out the problem with lumping all STEM workers and graduates in the same group and why computer science, specifically, needs to be separated when looking at jobs.
Read the entire piece here.
House Passes NITRD, Cybersecurity Bills During Cyber Week
/In: CRA, Policy, Research, Security /by MelissaNorrIt’s “cyber week” on Capitol Hill and yesterday that meant the House passing H.R. 967, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2013, and H.R. 756, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2013, two bills we discussed in detail and endorsed last month. CRA, along with ACM, SIAM, and IEEE-CS, submitted a joint letter of support for the bills when they were introduced earlier this year. Both bills were passed under suspension, which means they were passed without amendments and with at least two-thirds of the Members agreeing.
In the forty minutes of debate on the NITRD reauthorization, Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said, “NIT technologies cut across every sector of our economy and our national defense infrastructure. Our relatively modest 20-year investment in the NITRD program has contributed immeasurably to our economic and national security by enabling innovation and job creation in NIT and providing American students with the skills to fill those jobs. Let’s reauthorize this program today and ensure it remains strong.”
In regards to the cybersecurity bill, Congressman Dan Lipinksi (D-IL) stated, “Just last month, the Director of National Intelligence testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the danger of cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage on crucial infrastructure tops the list of global threats. I believe that we face the possibility of a cyber “Pearl Harbor” that could destroy America’s military or economic security. We have already seen the loss of countless jobs through cyber espionage and we face – and thankfully, so far, we have repelled – much worse attacks every day. It is now more important than ever that we get this legislation across the finish line and onto the President’s desk.”
Robotics Roadmap 2.0 on the Hill
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Events, Research /by MelissaNorrThe Congressional Robotics Caucus held a briefing this morning on the Robotics Roadmap 2.0(PDF), a follow up report to the CCC-led Robotics Roadmap(PDF) published in 2009. Representative Phil Gingrey (R – GA) opened the briefing with remarks about the importance of science and technology to the future of the country and our economy. Bill Thomasmeyer of the Robotics Technology Consortium moderated the briefing.
Henrik Christensen of Georgia Tech and one of the original co-authors of the CCC-led report gave an overview of the roadmap in its second iteration. He noted that there was a 44 percent increase in the sale of manufacturing robotics in the US in 2011. Christensen spoke of the need for robotics in military action, disaster response, medical and rehabilitation settings, and personal robotics for an aging and disabled population. While the first Robotics Roadmap led to the National Robotics Initiative, the US cannot stop there if it wants to be globally competitive going forward. He mentioned a recent 500 million Euro investment in robotics that as well as similar efforts in Korea and China.
Three additional speakers, Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, Pete Wurman of Kiva Systems, and Russ Angold of Ekso Bionics, spoke to their individual companies’ areas. Brooks stated that the source of inventions is academic research and that’s what made the US the leader in robotics when the field was brand new. Rethink Robotics is in manufacturing and he pointed out that robots do not replace workers as many fear but instead augment workers on the job. Wurman spoke to the ability to find efficiencies in logistics and that the growth of Kiva Systems has been primarily driven by the growth of e-commerce. In fact, Wurman said that Amazon purchased Kiva Systems last year after being one of the Kiva customers for several years. Angold had the most visually impactful presentation – he had a paralyzed veteran who put on Ekso Bionics wearable robot that allowed him to stand up and walk. Ekso Bionics was started with a DARPA grant and no has a few dozen wearable robots in rehabilitation facilities around the country and in clinical trials. Angold said that currently the robots are being used with patients with spinal cord injuries but they are working on robots to also help stroke victims.
The presentations of each speaker will be available here shortly.
Two Computing Bills Marked Up Today
/In: Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Policy, Research, Security /by MelissaNorrToday the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee marked up two computing bills for floor consideration. HR 756, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2013, and HR 967, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2013, both of which had passed in the House of Representatives in previous Congressional sessions but not taken up by the Senate. CRA has, both now and in the past, endorsed both of these bills.
The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act promotes education, training, awareness, and research in cybersecurity via authorizing of federal research funding, scholarships, and coordination of programs across NITRD agencies. The legislation requires participating agencies, in conjunction with the National Coordinating Office, to develop strategic plans for federal cybersecurity research. It would also prioritize cyberesecurity research at participating agencies such as NSF. A number of amendments were added during the markup to clarify and specify the inclusion of women, veterans, and community colleges in the education and training provisions as well as to require the evaluation of higher education courses and degrees in cybersecurity. There were also amendments to increase the NIST role in research in the security of the IT supply chain and in the science of cybersecurity.
The Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2013 updates the existing NITRD bill and enacts several of the recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Specifically, the bill requires the NITRD agencies to create a five-year strategic plan for the program, and to have the program’s progress periodically reviewed by a committee of IT experts from academia and industry. Like, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, this bill emphasizes education and attracting women and minorities to get degrees in computing fields. It would also examine the use of cloud computing for federally funded research. Fewer amendments were offered on the NITRD bill than the Cybersecurity Enhancement bill and they were mostly to reflect changes and programs that are already being done under the bill, such as the cyberphysical systems program.
Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted that CRA and several other groups such as ACM and IEEE-CS also supported the bills. CRA led the community with a joint endorsement letter that was sent to the Committee.
Undergrad Computer Science Enrollments Rise for Fifth Straight Year — CRA Taulbee Report
/In: CRA, Diversity in Computing, General, People /by Shar SteedThe number of new undergraduate computing majors among U.S. computer science departments rose an astonishing 29.2 percent this year, according to new data released today by the Computing Research Association.
Overall Ph.D. production in computing programs reported in the survey reached its highest level ever, with 1,929. This represents an 8.2 percent increase over 2010-11. Among those departments reporting both this year and last year, the number of total doctoral degrees increased by 5.2 percent. More than 55 percent of those new degree holders took jobs in industry, with the remainder finding academic or government positions, or self-employment. Only 0.4 percent reported unemployment. The survey also found that bachelor’s degree production in computing fields increased by 19.8 percent overall, and 16.6 percent among those departments that reported both years.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by the CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or information. CRA today released its Computing Degrees and Enrollment Trends, 2011-12 report. The full Taulbee dataset will be released to the public in May and published in CRA’s Computing Research News.
House Oversight Hearing on Conference Travel
/In: Policy, Research /by MelissaNorrIn the aftermath of the GSA Las Vegas conference scandal, the White House issued restrictions on travel and conference spending (PDF) which we discussed here previously. Congress is once again wading into the issue with a House Government Oversight Committee hearing featuring three government witnesses: The Honorable Rush Holt, Representative for the 12th Congressional District of New Jersey, The Honorable Danny Werfel, Controller, U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and Ms. Cynthia Metzler, Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. General Services Administration.
While the overall hearing focused on overall government spending and GSA spending on travel and conferences, Congressman Holt specifically addressed scientific conferences. He noted that restrictions on government scientists attendance of conferences can hinder scientific collaboration and innovation. He stated that spending on research and scientists is not wasteful spending but rather that spending is an important investment.
Werfel noted that the restrictions had been increased to require agency spending on travel and conferences to be 30 percent below 2010 levels by 2013 and that agencies maintain that level through 2016. He noted that mission critical activities are protected from these required cuts so scientific collaboration should not be hindered.
Ranking Member Steve Lynch (D-MA) noted that in the House bill that would codify the OMB guidance, H.R. 313, agencies are limited to sending 50 people or less to a conference and that this is problematic for large scientific conferences such as the International AIDS Conference that sometimes has a thousand government scientists in attendance. He wondered if this type of limit was harming the efficacy and value of the conferences. Werfel stated that yes, that was a concern and allowing the agency heads to make the executive decision about how many people to send to maximize the agency mission would help alleviate that. He also noted that sometimes having higher numbers of employees attend one conference rather than having smaller numbers attend different conferences can create greater efficiencies of scale and cost savings.
Ranking Member Lynch also submitted a letter from AAAS and other science organizations with the scientific communities concerns for the record. CRA joined with other members of the computing community – USACM, IEEE-USA, and SIAM – in submitting a letter (PDF) to Congressional leaders and Administration officials last fall outlining concerns with the restrictions.
The video of the hearing and the written testimony of the three witnesses can be found here.
Congressional Resolution – App Challenge
/In: Computing Education, Policy /by MelissaNorrIn a nod toward the need to increase STEM interest among K – 12 students, Congress has passed House Resolution 77, the Academic Competition Resolution of 2013. The resolution establishes an academic STEM competition for students in Congressional districts. The initial competition is an App Challenge – students must build an app for mobile, tablet, and computer platforms.
The “findings” of Congress listed in the resolution include:
IT Research Hearing Focuses on Security, Education
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Events, Funding, People, Policy /by MelissaNorrAs noted in a previous post, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Research held a hearing on Applications for Information Technology Research and Development.
CCC Chair and former CRA Board Chair Ed Lazowska, CRA-W Chair and current CRA Board Member Kathryn McKinley, representing Microsoft, and Kelly Gaither of the University of Texas at Austin testified on behalf of the computing community and articulated the importance of federal funding for computing research.
Gaither testified first and spoke to the need for interdisciplinary research as computing is an integral piece of other research areas. She also talked about how research isn’t just about end products and discoveries but about the researchers that are supported and the opportunities researchers have because of federal funding.
McKinley testified about the fact that computing is reaching some fundamental limits and that research is needed to make breakthroughs to overcome those limits. She noted that while the US is still leading the world in computing research, other nations are investing more and if we do not keep up, we will lose our competitive advantage. McKinley also addressed the diversity problem in computing and noted that we need far more graduates than we currently have and that we will have to attract more women and minorities if we want to have enough people to fill the needs of the future in computing.
Lazowska spoke about the NITRD program’s history and the role of computing in the US economy. He showed an NRC chart on research and IT sectors with billion dollar markets. Lazowska also talked about the need to integrate security into the building of systems and not added on at the end as a defensive measure when questioned about cybersecurity by Congressman Steven Stockman (R-TX). Stockman, who credits support from the fiscally-conservative Tea Party for his election, had the quote of the hearing, when after having pressed Lazowska for an order-of-magnitude estimate on how much additional investment in fundamental cyber security research would move the needle seemed surprised that the number PITAC requested back in 2005 was “only” $90 million. “Well, I’m interested in getting you billions, not millions,” he said, indicating he was very concerned about the U.S. vulnerability to cyber attack.
The Subcommittee members were very interested in how to tackle the education problem in computing as well as how they could help researchers address cybersecurity moving forward.
Written testimony and a webcast of the hearing can be found here. Additionally, a PDF of Lazowska’s oral testimony can be found here.