CRA-I Blog

The CRA-I Blog frequently shares news, timely information about the computing research industry community, and items of interest to the general community. Subscribe to blog emails here to stay connected.

Building a More Inclusive Future: Highlights from the CRA Accessible for All Report

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In a rapidly digitizing world, ensuring accessibility for all individuals is crucial. 

In February 2023, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held a workshop on Accessible Technology for All. The workshop was co-hosted by CRA-Industry (CRA-I), Computing Community Consortium (CCC), and CRA-Widening Participation (CRA-WP) and led by a team of organizers from the various CRA committees including Jeanine Cooke (Sandia National Labs / CRA-WP), Shaun Kane (Google), Chris Ramming (VMware / CRA-I), Katie Siek (Indiana University / CCC), and Divesh Srivastava (AT&T / CRA-I). This workshop brought together over 40 participants, 20 being remote, from academia, industry, government, and disability advocacy groups to identify the accessibility challenges and opportunities of the present moment. 

CRA is pleased to announce that the workshop report “Accessible Technology for All” has been published. The report underscores the need to address barriers faced by people with disabilities and promote accessibility across various domains. 

The six calls to action include:

  1. Increase funding opportunities for underserved accessibility needs 
    • Funding bodies should create additional opportunities for research subjects that were identified as underserved. 
  2. Promote accessibility goals in all funded research, not just accessibility research
    • Researchers who do not specifically focus on accessibility work should be provided with incentives and support to promote positive accessibility outcomes in their research. 
  3. Increase efforts to improve representation of people with disabilities in technical and research positions 
    • Increasing representation from people with disabilities in technology and research requires support throughout the education and pipeline. 
  4. Encourage industry-university collaborations (Increase Accessibility in Industry) 
    • Solving accessibility problems often benefits from collaborations between academia and industry. 
  5. Consider ways to increase awareness of disability-related policy and law 
    • The legal and policy framework for digital accessibility has a huge impact on when and if technologies and content are made or later become accessible. 
  6. Take a proactive approach to accessibility issues in machine learning 
    • As machine learning becomes pervasive in the technologies that we use, new accessibility challenges will appear. It is necessary to understand and remediate accessibility problems early and often.

This report is a timely and significant contribution to the pursuit of inclusivity in technology by the research community. By addressing the challenges, promoting collaboration and education, advancing research and development, and advocating for effective policies and standardization, we can pave the way for a more accessible and inclusive future. Embracing these calls to action will not only benefit individuals with disabilities but also enhance the overall user experience and foster innovation in the technology sector. 

See the full report here to learn more. 

NSF Letter to CISE Community

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The following message is from Margaret Martonosi, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Assistant Director for Computer and information Science and Engineering (CISE). Last week Margaret participated as a panelist in the “AI, Society, and the Role of Computing Research” panel at CRA-Industry’s (CRA-I) Workshop on Computing Research in Industry at the ACM Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) in Orlando, Florida. Individual blogs highlighting each panel of the CRA-I workshop at FCRC are forthcoming. 

Dear CISE community.

On June 21, as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, our NSF building in Alexandria, Virginia was the venue for a conversation between Prime Minister Modi and US First Lady Dr. Jill Biden on technology, education, and workforce. It was exciting for me to be present for this visit, which allowed NSF to showcase how our efforts are catalyzing research opportunities and career pathways for the next generation of scientists and innovators.

Please also note NSF’s current US-India funding opportunity, which supports collaborative research involving US-based and India-based researchers on all aspects of computing, communications, and information science and engineering, advanced cyberinfrastructure, secure and trustworthy computing, and cyber-physical systems. You can learn more by joining the next informational webinar on July 11.

A second important item of note is the National AI Strategy.  First, the US recently released the 2023 update to the National AI R&D Strategy (first released in 2016, and later updated in 2019).  Second, this document will now feed into a larger and broader process towards an overall National AI Strategy. This broader strategy document will consider AI’s impacts on many aspects of government and society, beyond the R&D focus. If you would like to offer input towards the strategy, please respond to the Request for Information (RFI) by July 7.

Finally, I was pleased to participate as a plenary speaker in this year’s ACM Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC). Held every four years, ACM FCRC brought together over 2500 researchers via co-locating over a dozen different ACM research conferences. My presentation focused on how working together across traditional topical boundaries will be key to progress on societal challenges. Entitled “Taking on the World’s Challenges: The Role of Computing Research and Innovation”, the talk recording is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS9Xk0nTW04, minute seven. Please take a look and let me know what you think!

Respectfully,

Margaret Martonosi
NSF Assistant Director for CISE

Calling Early and Mid Career Industry Researchers for CRA-WP’s Career Mentoring Workshop!

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Computing Research Association- Widening Participation (CRA-WP) is thrilled to announce its biennial Career Mentoring Workshop (CMW) in Chicago, IL on November 3-4, 2023.

The workshop presents an exceptional opportunity for early and mid-career professionals seeking growth and development in computer science research positions across three distinct tracks: education, research, and industry/lab. It offers tailored professional development opportunities for attendees at various career stages, with each track featuring separate sessions for early and mid-career professionals. This ensures that participants receive specialized guidance and support to advance their careers in the field.

Sessions will cover a range of topics including career advancement and promotion strategies, collaboration and brand/impact building, leading, negotiating, effective teaching, up/down management and much more. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in group mentoring and one-on-one mentoring sessions with experienced computing researchers from academia, government, and industry labs. Notably, some of the confirmed speakers include Valerie Taylor, Ann Gates, Dorian Arnold, Kyla McMullen, and Jie Gao, among other distinguished researchers.

For more information, including workshop eligibility, full list of speakers, session topics, and the link to apply, please visit this website.