October 13, 2016

It’s truly an exciting time for computing!  It’s also a great time for science and engineering more generally.  Tomorrow, President Obama will host the White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, PA, a national convening co-hosted with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
 
The conference will highlight five science and technology frontiers that will grow U.S. capacity at the cutting edge of innovation, touch all aspects of our lives, and shape the 21st century and beyond.  Computing research and application have a central role in all of these frontiers, which are also the subject of the November issue of WIRED, guest-edited by the President.

• Personal Frontiers focuses on innovation in health and wellbeing.
• Local Frontiers discusses how communities are creatively connecting and using data, new technologies, and infrastructure to work together to improve quality of life.
• National Frontiers focuses on the role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, and robotics in addressing complex national problems.
• Global Frontiers discusses technology, tools and design for achieving clean energy and advances in understanding of climate.
• Interplanetary Frontiers focuses on space exploration and the thriving American space industry.

All conference sessions, including the plenary featuring the President and Atul Gawande, will be webcast live on the conference webpage: http://frontiersconference.org/.
 
As part of the focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the National Frontiers, the White House also released two documents today:  Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence, which discusses the current state and future opportunities for AI; and the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan, which lays out a strategic plan for Federally-supported R&D in AI.  The CISE community was critically important in helping shape both documents.  We want to thank the members of our CISE community who participated in the workshop series on AI for Good.  We especially want to acknowledge Lynne Parker, our NSF/CISE Division Director for Information & Intelligent Systems, who co-led the development of the National AI R&D Strategic Plan.
 
This National AI R&D Strategic Plan is actually the fourth federal R&D Strategic plan released this year in which our CISE community has played a key role.  You’ll also find the Federal Big Data Research and Development Strategic Plan, National Privacy Research Strategy, and Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan – all released earlier this year – to be of interest.  It’s unquestionably been a busy, important, and high-visibility year for our field.

We want to thank the CISE community – for your leadership and vision in advancing the frontiers of computing.  The impacts of your efforts have helped to ensure that computing will be at the center of innovations that will touch our lives for decades to come!

Jim Kurose
NSF Assistant Director, Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering
 
Erwin Gianchandani
NSF Deputy Assistant Director, Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering

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This was sent to the CISE Announcement Listerv on Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 10:42 PM

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