COMPUTING RESEARCH POLICY BLOG

Another quick pointer to some articles of potential interest of readers. FCW has three noteworthy pieces today.
Michael Hardy has a good article on whether government and industry remain committed enough to research to keep the U.S. competitive in the years to come.

At one time, the United States was the undisputed center of innovative technology development in the world — and the U.S. government led the charge. Because of government research, sleek cylinders carried men to the moon, and later, sleek cables carried data worldwide, a breakthrough that would come to be known as the Internet.
Times have changed. Other countries are emerging as technology centers, and the U.S. government has stepped back from its leadership position, letting the private sector try to fill the gap. Technology has made the world flat, in the words of author Thomas Friedman, so that oceans and borders are no longer boundaries to the flow of expertise and inspiration.
This evolution has many ramifications. Some fear that the United States is losing its stature as a world leader in innovation. Others point to the profit motives of industry, saying that research without a probable commercial application is less likely to get done if government doesn’t do it.

And Aliya Sternstein has two pieces of interest. One is a good survey of some of the legislation currently in circulation surrounding the competitiveness and innovation issue. The other details the NSTC Cyber Security plan we covered recently. Sternstein has a good quote from former CRA board chair (and current Government Affairs committee co-Chair) Ed Lazowzka:

Ed Lazowska, co-chairman of the President’s IT Advisory Committee from 2003 until its authorization expired in June 2005, said the government must increase funding to reach the goals listed in the report.
“So my entreaty to Dr. Marburger is, ‘Spare me the commendations and show me the money,’” Lazowska said. “It’s time for leadership and investment.”

Links to all the stories:

Just a quick pointer to an interesting Computerworld article featuring comments from Kenneth Berman, Randy Bryant, John Canny, Jaime Carbonell, Bernard Chazelle, and William Dally on the current state of computer science. Here’s a snippet:

How can CS be made a more attractive choice for students?
Bryant: We should stop scaring them away. Predicting that all IT jobs will move offshore could become self-fulfilling. New jobs are growing faster than old jobs are moving offshore, and that trend will continue. We need to stop putting them to sleep. Students who take computer science classes in high school are taught how to write programs in Java, and their assignments have them writing code that does tedious things like sort lists of numbers. They do not learn about any of the big ideas of computer science.
Chazelle: I roll my eyes when I hear students say, “CS is boring, so I’ll go into finance.” Do they know how dull it is to spend all-nighters running the numbers for a merger-and-acquisition deal? No.
People have run away from CS because they are worried about outsourcing. This is a valid concern that can’t be waved away by simply repeating the mantra that CS is cool.
Dally: We need to clear up many misconceptions about the field. Prospective students should understand that there are plenty of CS jobs in the U.S. and they pay well, that most CS jobs involve working with teams of people and place a premium on communication skills and teamwork — it’s not just a bunch of nerds working individually at terminals — and that CS is so central to so many aspects of our economy that a CS education is good preparation for many careers.
Canny: We’re losing in quality — principally to bioengineering, which is now the best students’ top choice — and diversity. It’s a problem of social relevance. Minorities and women moved fastest into areas such as law and medicine that have obvious and compelling social impact. We’ve never cared much about social impact in CS.

Read the whole thing.