FCA Future of Work Group - ACM Future of Computing Academy

Lana Yarosh

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
United States

There are three issues that I would like to foreground as part of my larger agenda: promoting diversity, supporting explicit foregrounding of values, and advocating for human-centered approaches in computing.

I would like to pursue the first two by initiating workshops and surveys within the wider computing community, compiling the empirical results in reports that may serve as sets of guidelines and best practices in the field. These first two issues are:

Promoting Diversity: The identity of the designer matters. New technologies carry inherent assumptions and values that reflect the identity of their inventors. Yet, Computer Science is one of the least diverse academic fields, with a well-documented lack of women and minorities. I want to join the ACM FCA in order to advocate for the inclusion of voices that are currently left out and by compiling strategies for recruitment and retention that have worked for departments and companies.

Supporting Explicit Discussion Values: Communities benefit from explicitly stating and discussing values that may otherwise remain unspoken. Value clashes have been in the foreground of computing work with issues such as consent (e.g., Facebook emotion contagion study), privacy (e.g., Snapchats data leak), algorithmic bias (e.g., racist loan prediction algorithms), etc. I want to join the ACM FCA to encourage us to hold explicit discussion about our values to guide our future research, teaching, and industry agendas.

Additionally, I would like to serve as an advocate and voice (ideally in a poly-vocal community of colleagues) for the values of human-centered computing:

Advocating for Human-Centered Approaches: Computing technology has the potential to improve so many facets of our lives, but it also may introduce a substantial threat to fundamental human rights like privacy, belonging, independence, and more. A fundamental thread in my research and teaching is in understanding and evaluating technological advances in terms of both the benefits they may provide and the costs they may incur for the people who use them. I would like to join the ACM Future of Computing Academy in order to advocate for a reflective and human-centered approach to Computer Science.

Cathy Wu

UC Berkeley
Berkley, California
United States

http://wucathy.com/

I want to be a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy (FCA) because I want to leverage the ACMs resources to tackle key challenges we face as a society. I believe computing and the ACM community can play an important positive role in addressing issues such as climate change, income inequality, access to basic resources, and international conflicts. Addressing global challenges is currently grossly undervalued, taking a backseat to more lucrative or popular topics. As we are becoming an increasingly connected and global society, we can expect that changes in the world will happen faster and faster. We must be more proactive about addressing systematic problems, rather than waiting to see what happens.

My current research studies how autonomous vehicles can be used to reduce energy consumption of transportation at the system level. In particular, we are studying how a small fraction of autonomous vehicles can smooth out the stop-and-go traffic responsible for wasting 15-20% of fuel in highway traffic. Computing is key in the reinforcement learning, control techniques, and simulation components of the research. Although my research is by no means the full solution to climate change, huge societal problems are unlikely to have a single clean answer. Rather, there will be dozens of approaches that make some headway towards the overall problem, many of which may rely on computing.

I am also inspired by Sana, an active research group at MIT. Sana aims to democratize healthcare through open source technologies, with projects in eight developing countries. Sana was created by a friend, as a project in a class on mobile technology; he developed a mobile application to enable the remote diagnosis of cervical cancer for individuals without access to requisite medical facilities. This example has shown me that: 1) we as individuals can have great positive influence, 2) creating opportunities and encouraging creativity, even in the classroom, can go a long way, and importantly 3) the opportunities for computing and global problems are there.

As a member, I hope to encourage academics and industry professionals alike to think and act more broadly, and provide them with the resources to do so. In particular, several concrete areas of focus through the ACM FCA could contribute to this overall effort of elevating global problems as an area of pursuit:

– Encourage, facilitate, and reward cross-disciplinary work. For example, ACM may facilitate this through a SIG on urban systems or public policy and special reports on these topics geared towards a computing audience.
– Encourage diversity in our communities, including diversity of gender and race, but also diversity of thought and perspective.
– Expose new generations of young professionals to complex real-world and societal problems by introducing such problems into computer science and engineering undergraduate curricula.

I see a great opportunity for ACM to harness its visibility to direct focus and energy towards the societal problems that we face today and into the future, and I would be honored to contribute to this effort.

Pamela Wisniewski

University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
United States

pamspam.com

“Hello, world!” We each need to be the change we want to see in you. . .

I have been told to be my own island, to be selfish, and to just focus on my own career so that I can get publications, grants, and tenure. However, if that is who I have to be in order to be successful, then it is simply not worth it. There is a bigger purpose as to why we serve in academia and the incentives for our success should change to reflect this higher purpose. As academics in higher education, it is our ethical responsibility to reflect on our own community so that we can improve it from within. While the ACM community is strong in numbers and in overall quality, there are some things that are broken. Even though we widely advocate for social justice in our society, we are deeply embedded within a class-hierarchy within our own profession. Researchers from top institutions have more resources and sway in the community, while many of the rest of us are struggling to perform at the same level with fewer resources. The rising costs of many of the ACM conference preclude many from participation at all. Women and minorities continue to be under-represented. We publish research that has serious ethical flaws; yet, researchers who abide by high ethical standards are unintentionally punished by the higher bar they set for themselves, which result in a slower pipeline to publication. These are just some of the tensions in our value systems I have personally experienced, and I am sure the complexity far exceeds my own knowledge. It takes honest conversations about our own flaws and a deep empathy for others in order to fix these types of problems.

As an interdisciplinary researcher in Sociotechnical systems, I feel that I am a good candidate to help facilitate these potentially critical conversations for helping shape the next generation of computing professionals. While I may not be as “young” as I used to be, I am at the right place in life where I deeply care about the same things the younger generation needs to see improve about our profession and am old enough to fight for it. I have and still struggle to be successful in my chosen profession for a variety of reasons; I am a first-generation college student, a woman, a mom, a wife to a husband with a chronic illness, a Ph.D. from a mid-tier university, and someone who is considered to be on the “softer” side of computer science. Yet, it is often our own struggles that teach us empathy for others. I sincerely want be part of building inclusivity and diversity within ACM, which will benefit society as a whole because computing truly should be “for all.”

Julie Williamson

University of Glasgow
Glasgow, Scotland

http://juliericowilliamson.com/blog/

As a member of the FCA, I hope to develop key areas of practice such as ethics, open data, reproducibility, and scientific quality of published research.

Methodology is at the core of scientific work, but computing sciences broad range of topics and influences means that approaches vary widely across specialist areas. While variation is necessary and healthy for the discipline, some shared beliefs around rigour need to be developed. In my own area of human computer interaction (HCI), I see a broad range of approaches adopted, and evaluating rigour can be difficult and comparing approaches is not always meaningful. Developing a shared ideal for scientific practice across the breadth of computing science and developing an understanding of how different topics value elements of rigour would greatly strengthen our discipline.

Research ethics is an area that is becoming more embedded within dissemination practice as scientific bodies seek to ensure unethical work is not promoted through publication. For example, SIGCHI recently established a working group to discuss what role SIGCHI should have in ensuring ethical practice, and ACM is also in the process of reviewing its code of ethics. With ethical practices varying widely across location and research environment, scientific bodies, as opposed to individual institutions, need to take the lead in defining ethical frameworks.

Open data practices and reproducibility are two related issues which computing scientists must also address to advance our discipline. I have been early adopter of open data initiatives of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the European Commission H2020 programme. I aim to see ACM at the forefront of setting the standard for open data practices and leading the way in making true reproducibility a fundamental value. Computing science is uniquely posed to establish best practices. However, there are a host of issues with reproducibility in computing science given the changing platforms, hardware, and software which have not yet been overcome satisfactorily. I see computing science, and therefore the ACM, being drivers of this initiative.

While some of these issues relate are especially pertinent to human computer interaction, the broader field of computing science should be positioning itself to lead the discussion on these issues. In joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy, I could meet like-minded researchers from a range of topics within computing to work towards this vision. I am able to commit my time to attend regular meetings with the Academy would be delighted to volunteer to lead a working group tackling one or more of the issues I present here.

Lauren Wilcox

Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
United States

http://laurenwilcox.net

Advances in computing technology now offer individuals unprecedented ways to measure and report health information. Since joining Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in 2013, my research has investigated how computing technology can better support teenage adolescents and young adults grappling with chronic illnesses. Though personal health data is increasingly ubiquitous, there exist significant gaps in our understanding of how computing systems can best support lay end-users in data review and management. My research bridges this gap through studies focused on the needs of teenage adolescents and young adults who are shifting into more autonomous and responsible managers of their lives and bodies. These young people must often work together with family members to collaboratively manage personal health-related data and practice self-care skills.

Through a recent NSF CAREER award, I aim to advance the current state of the art in mobile health sensing, by investigating how tools can be designed and developed in ways that are sensitive to and supportive of the adolescent patient’s developmental stage. This means, in part, collecting and fusing data from several different types of sensing approaches, and allowing for the reconciliation of system-generated observations (e.g., gathered from physiological sensing) with human-reported observations (e.g., self-reported pain or side effects of medication). For teenage adolescents—and even young adults—some observations are collaboratively generated, coming from family members such as parental caregivers. My research team prototypes novel, interactive user interfaces for collaboratively tracking and managing adolescents personal health data.

My interest in participating in the Future of Computing Academy (ACM-FCA), is two-fold. First, I wish to represent the voice of the adolescents with whom I engage in my research. These adolescents grapple with issues of data privacy, health literacy and emotional preparedness in tracking critical indicators of their health. They are no longer an exception to the rule of what it means to be young: estimates of the number of adolescents in the U.S. suffering from at least one moderate or severe chronic condition recently reached 31%, according to the HHS Office of Adolescent Health. Chronic conditions have been recognized by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as a leading health concern for the nation.

Second, as a female junior faculty member in her third year of a tenure-track position at Georgia Tech, I wish to represent the voice of young women who are in the early stages of a research career. Academic faculty bring a deep commitment to teaching and training the next generation of computing professionals. Like the ACM-FCA, we lay the foundations for future generations: in our classrooms, our research labs, and office hours.

As a participant in the ACM-FCA, I will articulate these voices, and explore their consonance with those of other young computing professionals, to bring our collective voice to bear on issues facing the next generation. Together, we can identify and address the challenges facing this generation, to work toward a future that empowers them through informed research, education, and related efforts that contribute to the mission of the ACM.

Tim Weninger

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana
United States

https://www3.nd.edu/~tweninge/

The art and science of computing is evolving rapidly, and its professionals often have a difficult time keeping pace. As a tenure track assistant professor at a research university, one of primary responsibilities is to engage in scholarly research and publish my findings. I love this work. But the pressure to publish is present in the many of the decisions that I make. In the hurry to publish results, a good piece of scholarship is often broken into two or three papers. This can result in published papers with experiments that are not robust and conclusions that are not convincing.

The publishing structure of computer science is in need of repair.

The pressure to publish leads to problems in the service duties of computing professionals who are asked to review an increasing number of papers. As the review workload increases, the quality of each review necessarily decreases leading to a lower confidence in our peer review system. This is further exacerbated by the dozens and dozens of conferences that are held each year within the same discipline. The existence of multiple conferences further requires large budgets for registration fees, hotels, and airfare, which can be an enormous burden for young scientists and their families.

Clearly there is a problem. I believe that, as the leader in academic computing community, the ACM is obligated to address the current state of the scholarly publication process. This is at the very heart of the future of the computing discipline, and I intend to help address this issue in a comprehensive way. It is imperative to the future of computing that these and other challenges be addressed by the FCA. I am grateful that the ACM is providing a forum for young computing professionals to contribute through the Future of Computing Academy, and I look forward to serving.

Svitlana Volkova

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Benton County, Washington
United States

http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~svitlana/

During my PhD I developed approaches and practical techniques for streaming personal analytics in social media focusing on the task of user demographic prediction. I proposed methods for constrained-resource classification, streaming prediction, iterative learning and inference with interactive annotation and weighting techniques. Predictive models developed in my dissertation allow the analysis of the relationships between user language, perceived psycho-demographic traits, emotions, opinions and interests in social media at scale. I have been a research intern (summers of 2011, 2012 and 2014) in the Microsoft Research Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning and Perception teams. I was awarded a Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship in 2010 and a Fulbright Scholarship in 2008. I am on a Program Committee for top NLP and AI conferences: NAACL, TACL, ACL, EACL, EMNLP, AAAI, WWW and GHC. During my PhD I developed approaches and practical techniques for streaming personal analytics in social media focusing on the task of user demographic prediction. I proposed methods for constrained-resource classification, streaming prediction, iterative learning and inference with interactive annotation and weighting techniques. Predictive models developed in my dissertation allow the analysis of the relationships between user language, perceived psycho-demographic traits, emotions, opinions and interests in social media at scale. I have been a research intern (summers of 2011, 2012 and 2014) in the Microsoft Research Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning and Perception teams. I was awarded a Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship in 2010 and a Fulbright Scholarship in 2008. I am on a Program Committee for top NLP and AI conferences: NAACL, TACL, ACL, EACL, EMNLP, AAAI, WWW and GHC.

I have been advocating for women in science and computing for years. I am on the board for Women in Machine Learning (http://wimlworkshop.org/) and Women in Natural Language Processing (http://www.winlp.org/). I attended Grace Hopper conference several times, and was an speaker at the AI track in 2016. I am committed to promote research by women in computing in general, and machine learning and natural language processing specifically, with the goal to:
– Enhance the experience of women during their PhD.
– Increase the number of women attending technical conferences and presenting their research.
– Help women succeed professionally and increase the impact of women in computer science.

I believe that being a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy will allow me to create additional opportunities that will increase awareness and appreciation of the achievements of women in computing as well as younger generation of computing professionals in general.

Rajan Vaish

Snap Research
Venice, California
United States

http://cs.stanford.edu/~rvaish/

Through my research in human-computer interaction and crowdsourcing, I am on a quest to scale and make the scientific contribution and scientific knowledge more accessible and open. In particular, my projects like Stanford Crowd Research (crowdresearch.stanford.edu) and Scholar initiatives (scholar.stanford.edu) have enabled global access to the crowd to participate in conducting research and disseminating scholarly knowledge at scale. In doing so, I not only hope to provide large-scale mentorship and educational opportunities to the crowd who never before had access to open-ended creative knowledge work, but also scale the human scope of the scientific efforts.

To date, these efforts have enabled access to more than 2,000 people worldwide to be crowd-as-scientists and crowd-as-teachers rather than crowd-as-workers. Their contributions have resulted in multiple crowd-authored papers at top-tier conferences like ACM CSCW 2017, ACM UIST 2015/16, and AAAI HCOMP 2015. Together, they have contributed to engineering, design, video production — developing a crowdsourcing platform from scratch and produced over 200 research and technical talks in 15 languages, attracting over 35,000 views. Enriched by this experience, participants worldwide have gone on to undergraduate and graduate programs at schools such as MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and CMU; while many plan to pursue a career in STEM research.

I believe that my mission strongly echoes with the vision of ACM, to empower people worldwide with scientific knowledge and access. As ACM is exploring ways to best balance the ecosystem while advancing its next steps with the changing needs of people, and the way they consume research information — I am excited that my research agenda aligns with the ACM’s vision. I look forward to collaborating with ACM and work together to help advance the collective nature of research-at-scale and dissemination of research knowledge on a global scale.

Justin Solomon

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
United States

http://people.csail.mit.edu/jsolomon/

The accessibility of computer science (CS) has grown considerably in the last decade. While in earlier parts of my career I struggled to advocate for K-12 CS education, educators and students no longer doubt the value of computational thinking.

What gets communicated inadequately, however, is the intellectual vibrancy of computing. Wired recently published an article titled “The Next Big Blue-Collar Job is Coding,” arguing that coding prepares students for “the equivalent of skilled work at a Chrysler plant.” Computational skills are identified with programming and viewed as commodity work; success stories focus on the business acumen of app creators. This bias is reflected in opinions among my students: CS is viewed as a “get rich quick” major that can turn off students excited about technical challenge.

With the ACM-FCA, I will broaden the scope of computing advocacy to incorporate the breadth of computational disciplines. While programming remains critical, next-generation advances require ideas from machine learning to system engineering, interaction, and algorithms. Communicating concepts beyond hacking will expose computing as a mature, applicable discipline doubling as a vehicle for job creation and scientific challenge.

I will leverage my position in the Academy to recruit assistance among ACM chapters/SIGs. Some branches of the ACM are divided between research and practice; I will work to serve as a liaison bring the sides together. Initial efforts can include tech talks and continuing education events featuring researchers sharing their work. Conversely, I will organize forums where developers identify challenges to guide researchers toward practical problems.

Another aspect of showcasing the breadth of computing is to help cutting-edge developments reach a younger audience. I have long supported early CS education and will encourage the CSTA/SIGCSE to modernize K-12/undergraduate curricula not just in terms of programming methodologies but also by highlighting challenges in need of a new generation of problem-solvers. At the high school level, I see an opportunity to collaborate with the College Board in revising AP Computer Science to reflect university offerings. Combining their reach with the ACM’s technical resources and modern suggestions for CS education, we can ensure an educational standard commensurate with college programs and industry demands. This can dovetail with curricula starting in elementary school suggested in the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards.

ACM members also should take responsibility for programs like the Computer Science for All initiative, whose efforts to encourage CS among underrepresented students are threatened by vicissitudes of federal funding. I can lead ACM-FCA in lobbying for CS despite changing political landscapes, presenting a nonpartisan front supporting efforts to expand computing education.

FCA membership will allow me to identify like-minded peers and advisors and to communicate the value of ACM membership to potential young members. I will devote time throughout the year to FCA activities, including attendance at plenary events and work advocating for the next generation of computing professionals.

Anand Seetharam

The State University of New York Binghamton
Binghamton, New York
United States

http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~anand/

I am currently an assistant professor of Computer Science at SUNY Binghamton. Prior to joining SUNY Binghamton, I was an assistant professor at CSU Monterey Bay. As a professor, I constantly strive to expand the boundaries of computing through research, teaching and service. In addition to participating in professional service such as serving as reviewer for journals and technical program committee member for conferences, I am actively involved in community outreach and university service. By joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy, I hope to serve a larger community and address the research, educational and social challenges faced by the field of computing. This prospect of being able to guide and mold the future of computing is an exciting opportunity.

ACM FCA will provide me the opportunity to meet individuals from different walks of computing, and stay up to date with the latest developments in industry and academia. This will help me identify the most pressing problems in the field of computer science. Along with other members of ACM FCA, I hope to be able to draw the attention of the greater computing community to these important problems via articles, webinars and workshops. On a personal front, the interactions with members of ACM FCA will enable me establish collaborations and address some of the important research problems in computer science.

As a computer science educator, I have always been concerned by the limited participation of women and underrepresented communities in computer science. The low retention and graduation rate, especially in state universities is also a cause for worry. In an attempt to address these issues, during my time as faculty at CSUMB, a primarily Hispanic serving institution, I actively organized activities such as Hour of Code sessions for high school students, freshman enrichment programs and coding interviews workshops. I believe that ACM FCA will provide me the ideal setting to advocate strongly for these issues and devise possible solutions to improve the participation of women and minorities.

Additionally, the membership will provide a platform to discuss the impact of technology on human lives and how it can be better used to improve the quality of life. As computer science continues to transform each and every aspect of our life, being a member of ACM FCA will provide me a voice to reach the billions of people whose lives are being positively impacted by the miracles of computing. For example, ACM FCA might be able to provide resources such as free or low priced quality educational materials to low-income students, technical know how and computing power to small businesses, thereby aiding millions of individuals lead better and prosperous lives.

In conclusion, I believe that joining ACM FCA will be a fulfilling and enriching experience for me. I will consider it an honor if I am accepted as a member of ACM FCA and am confident that I will be able to fulfill the commitments of ACM FCA.

Catherine Schuman

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
United States

http://catherineschuman.com

As indicated by multiple initiatives across the computing and funding communities (including IEEE’s Rebooting Computing Initiative), there is significant need to consider post-Moore’s Law era technologies, including short-term measures such as 3D IC, medium-term measures such as beyond CMOS implementations, and long-term measures, such as the inclusion of novel computing platforms, such as quantum and neuromorphic computers. As a member of the neuromorphic computing (NC) community with a focus on the computing aspect (rather than the engineering aspect) of NC, I am passionate about communicating the need for the computing community as a whole to begin to think about what it will mean to the entire computing stack as we move into the post-Moore’s era of computing. My participation in the FCA will allow me to communicate to the greater computing community how neuromorphic computing and other post-Moore’s era technologies are going to shape and change computing for the next several decades. In particular, through the FCA, I would like to launch an initiative focused on computing issues surrounding post-Moore’s Law era technologies, and as a component of it, organize national and international workshops and conferences around those topics.

I am equally passionate about addressing the major issue of lack of representation of women and minorities in computing. Since I was an undergraduate, I have been involved in programs to promote the recruitment and retention of women and minorities for computing. I participated as a tutor and mentor in the NSF-sponsored STARS program for minorities in computing as an undergraduate, co-founded the Women in EECS organization at the University of Tennessee as a graduate student, and currently co-chair the Women in Computing organization at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I have attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing every year since 2013, and the Southeast Women in Computing conference in 2013 and 2015. Those experiences have allowed me to connect with other women and minorities in the field and have broadened my understanding beyond my own experiences. These experiences have furthered my understanding of the desperate need for further work to promote the needs and concerns of women and minorities. My participation in FCA will allow me to continue to provide a voice for women in computing and to help develop national-scale programs to promote the recruitment, mentorship, and retention of women and minorities in computing. In particular, I am interested in furthering organized outreach programs and materials for elementary and secondary school students, developing formalized mentoring programs for all students in computing, promoting a healthy and positive community culture in all levels of technology, and fostering a greater sense of community across the field as a whole to make the field more welcoming to incoming students and professionals.

Johannes Schoening

University of Bremen
Bremen, Germany

http://www.johannesschoening.de

I have be an advocate for the future of computing in the past. Since 2013 I am a junior fellow of the Gesellschaft fur Informatik (German Computer Society) and also love to engage on the international level to engage in activity for the benefit of the next generation of computing professionals. I will believe that knowledge about computer science is very essential for the generations to come. Therefore, I love to teach computer science at schools, e.g as part of the project GI@School, that was awarded with ACM Eugene Lawler award. More recently I organised a series of Dagstuhl Seminars in 2014 and 2016 to shape the CS curriculum at German high-schools.

Oren Sar Shalom

IBM Research
Haifa, Israel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/oren-sar-shalom-146a065/

I believe this would be an exceptional opportunity to leverage my desires: bridging the gap between various research fields and to exchange multidisciplinary ideas. For instance, the workshop I co-chair, DLRS aims at bringing together researchers from the Deep Learning and the Recommender Systems communities, to let them exchange ideas and to collaborate.
Being a member of the ACM FCA could empower me and allow me to meet and collaborate with more researchers who share this goal. In turn it would let me to both initiate more activities related to that goal and to conduct by myself research that combines several fields with researchers I’ll meet. In addition, it would serve as an acknowledgment in the vitality and importance of this credo.
Another advantage of being an ACM FCA member is to be able to influence the prioritization of ACM. As an example, I’m a supporter of Deep Learning for several years, and truly believe it holds a great potential. Indeed in the recent years, such techniques obtained state-of-the-art results in fields I’ve experienced with, such as recommender systems, NLP and anomaly detection. As an ACM FCA member, I’ll have the opportunity to modify to some extent the focus ACM gives to this topic, by means of e.g., supporting events and educational aims. I think that the ability to promote more such ideas could contribute both to the ACM FCA members (by allowing them to affect a large number of scientists) and to ACM, by assisting it to stay up-to-date and to focus on the right and promising research topics.
Another possible way of making impact is population oriented rather than research oriented. For instance, promoting young researchers and women in the academia. In this context, a long term initiative I would like to undertake is to make research more accessible to a broader population. There are many places, both in developed and developing countries, that can contribute to science and to be contributed by it, but cannot reach it yet. I would like to initiate an annual conference in a topic related to applied machine learning in such places. This conference could include not only invited talks by leading researchers who see the importance of this task, but also let the community become a research community: there can be a challenge and a hackathon that make the participants more involved.

Indrajit Roy

Google Inc.
Sunnyvale, California
United States

http://www.indrajitroy.com

“Making advanced CS programs and societies more inclusive”

My first exposure to ACM was through the ACM programming contest as a first year undergraduate. ACM then meant the programming contest to me. During my years of doctorate study I saw ACM through the eyes of a researcher — organizer of research conferences, publisher of CACM, and owner of the digital library. Today, after a few years in industry, I still perceive ACM through these two lenses. It bothers me that we, as ACM community members, have very little impact on the vast majority who are neither programming contest enthusiasts nor researchers. I am passionate about making advanced computer science programs and societies more inclusive.

My hope is that we can bring more students and industry participants in ACMs fold and show that ACM is useful in their career pursuits. As an example, at conferences, almost all the attending students are either from top-tier colleges or are authors of the papers. I have not seen students from lesser known universities such as San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, and others even if a conference venue is local (e.g., occurring in the bay area). ACM is not well known to these students during their graduate school and remains irrelevant to them as they join the workforce after graduating.

I believe that most of our computer science programs and societies unintentionally end up catering to the top bracket of students and professionals. Just as an idea, one way to include these local students would be to offer them free registration if they help with the registration desk duties at the conference.

Similarly, for the majority of engineers in the industry, who are not actively publishing, it is difficult to pinpoint the relevance of computer science societies. There are many engineers in the industry with deep technical knowledge who rarely go to conferences or even read CACM like publications. One idea to encourage CACM readership is to rethink whether CACM should add more articles for the masses. Why should it only cater to a researcher like audience? Why should it not be targeted towards high school students and young undergrads? I can envision a ACM supported new publication that has more popular-science flavor of articles making it appealing to the knowledgeable but casual reader. For young students, these articles would be a way to understand technological advances as well as their societal impact.

I am hoping that as ACM-FCA participants we will be able to create a working group to address these issues and try out new initiatives.

Linh Thi Xuan Phan

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
United States

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~linhphan

I am writing to apply to join the ACM Future of Computing Academy. I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I learned about the Academy from my colleague Insup Lee, and I was immediately excited about the idea – this would be a wonderful opportunity for me to make a difference, and to help shape the future direction of Computer Science research.

My research is in real-time and cyber-physical systems. I think this area is holding a lot of promise, but it is also creating many new challenges that Computer Science will have to deal with in the coming decade. Cyber-physical systems are all around us, and we are trusting them to an ever greater degree – sometimes with our very lives! – but unfortunately this trust is not always justified. Today, many cyber-physical systems offer very poor security, and we can regularly read about high-profile failures in the news: for instance, the botnet that compromised devices such as thermostats and baby monitors and used them to attack other systems, or the car that researchers compromised over its cellular link and drove into a ditch. With self-driving cars already on the horizon, computing is clearly becoming more closely connected with the physical world, but unfortunately our current security technology is not yet ready for the new challenges that this brings.

I believe that no individual discipline will be able to address these challenges, and I have already started some interdisciplinary projects here at Penn; for instance, I am working with a professor from the medical school on securing medical devices, and with a professor from the law school on the legal questions (liability, accountability, etc.) that the technology in a self-driving car would raise. Membership in the Academy would help me enhance these efforts: I would be able to interact with researchers from many other areas and other schools.

I think there are several things that I can bring to the table myself: I enjoy collaborative and interdisciplinary work, I have quite a few connections to industry through my projects, e.g., with Toyota and GM, and I have a track record of turning my ideas into practice; for instance, some my research on real-time virtualization has become part of Xen, which is used in many cloud platforms today. I have also been actively involved in outreach efforts, e.g., through my community’s diversity initiative, and I have been serving on the IEEE Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems, which shapes future research directions in my specific area. Finally, I have always tried to look ahead and to identify emerging challenges that will likely arise many years in the future, and I have already had some success at this – for instance, my NSF-funded project on real-time clouds was one of the first in this emerging area.

I very much hope that you will allow me to serve as a member of the Academy; this would be a wonderful opportunity for me. Thank you very much for your consideration!

Sun Young Park

University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
United States

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sunypark/

1. Why do you wish to be a member of the ACM-FCA?
ACM has been my academic home since graduate school and will continue to be so in the future. I have shared and published most of my work through ACM conferences and journals, and have used ACM resources and connections with other Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Social Computing researchers at annual ACM conferences to gain knowledge about the field.

In 2008, when I was doing my Masters at Carnegie Mellon University, I presented my very my first publication at the ACM/SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Florence, Italy. I vividly remember how amazed I was by the conference; it opened my eyes to the field of CI, offering me the opportunity to learn about up-to-date technology design-driven HCI works and to communicate with leading researchers, scholars, practitioners and other professionals from the field. Since then, I have become an annual attendee at various CM conferences, such as CHI and CSCW, and am now an active reviewer for CHI, CSCW, DIS, JCSCW and TOCHI, a program committee member of the CHI full paper track, CHI late-breaking work and DIS full paper track, and an organizer of the workshops at CHI conference. As an HCI researcher engaged in healthcare research, I greatly appreciate the supportive and stimulating community that ACM offers, and which provides me with greater insight into various healthcare related technology and social computing topics, problems, and solutions. ACM truly impresses upon me the advantages of working in a multi-disciplinary field like mine (Design, HCI and Healthcare) in order to create the best design outcomes for users.

Based on what I’ve learned and gained from the ACM, I want to be part of the ACM-FCA to contribute more directly by helping the community move forward to address the issues that the field faces. By becoming a member of ACM, I hope to engage in activities that pursue knowledge relating to important technical, educational, public, political, and social issues, as well as that which benefits the next generation of computing professionals and researchers.

2. What do you hope to achieve by becoming a member?
I believe the ACM-FCA can help me to continue creating new domain knowledge, expand my participation in the field, and hopefully make further contributions to the communities of HCI, Design, Social Computing, and Health Informatics. There are many potential mentors in this community with expertise that is highly relevant to my work and career interests. This program offers the rare opportunity to closely interact with seniors mentors and have sustained conversations with them about their work and mine, and to seek their guidance in the professionalization process. My hope is that through the ACM-FCA, I will be able to develop an extended network of practitioner and academic mentors from the diverse areas of computing across countries and technical communities; I hope we can collectively achieve the goal of shaping the future of a computing community that benefits the society were living in.

Marianna Obrist

University of Sussex
Brighton, United Kingdom

http://multi-sensory.info/

I have two main reasons and ambitions to become a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy:

– First, I want to develop new models and strategies for participation and career development in the Computing community. Volunteering on the ACM SIGCHI communication team over the last year, made me realize that we miss out on opportunities for innovation and knowledge transfer between members and non-members of the scientific community. Hence we launched the Communication Ambassador strategy and received an overwhelming positive and enthusiastic feedback in February this year, increasing our potential to reach researchers and practitioners across the globe through local representatives. I am eager to expand on this strategy for the ACM Future of Computing Academy and stimulate activities that will allow people across the globe to participate and promote their own and others careers.

– Second, I want to create opportunities that help people grow their personal networks across all regions, computing disciplines, and computing professions and beyond. One of the most beneficial experiences and lessons along my early career path was the exposure to other disciplines. Being challenged and going beyond once own personal comfort zone stimulate innovative and creative thinking and can in the best cases result in advancements in science, technology, and society. I want to generate ideas on how to facilitate such cross-disciplinary encounters. I take inspiration from SciFoo, a series of interdisciplinary scientific conferences organized by O’Reilly Media (FOO stands for “Friends of O’Reilly”), Digital Science, Nature Publishing Group and Google Inc., which I was lucky enough to attend in 2016. I believe that the Computing community has such a diverse and rich research and industry landscape enabling such cross-disciplinary networking events to stimulate discussion on the future of computing. Such engagement possibilities will benefit the current but particular the future generations that can gain inspiration to build and shape new experiences through advancements in computing.

Being awarded a membership in the ACM Future of Computing Academy provides me with the right opportunity and platform to tackle the above two ambitions, especially through increasing my possibilities to engage with representatives from our own and other disciplines. My own frontier research on Multisensory Technology gives me the right credibility to push the limits of future computing and engage with leaders in academia and industry. For instance, big companies such as IBM and CISCO promote the integration of the senses in future technology enabled through the Internet of Everything (IoE) vision. Cisco Chief Futurist Dave Evans said a few years back that IoE becomes an exponential proxy for sensing, understanding, and managing our world. With IoE, things that were silent now have a voice. Giving our Computing community a stronger voice beyond disciplinary boundaries is an important ambition I hope to achieve as member of the Academy.

Andrew Miller

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
United States

http://www.andrewmiller.net

I believe that the future of computing is interdisciplinary. Computing is at the core of many broader societal shifts, and the ACM has the potential to play a leadership role in fostering cross-disciplinary work. My own career and research at the intersection of social computing and healthcare serves as an example of this trend. In my work, I collaborate with a diverse set of stakeholders, including patients, their caregivers, doctors, nurses, clinical informatics specialists, health insurers, game designers, teachers, and students.

I study how social computing technologies can empower young people to help each other with their health and wellness. I design pervasive technologies to encourage and enable new forms of social support online and offline, and I work with youth as participants to shape both my technical systems and in-the-wild deployments. My research touches on a variety of health topics such as obesity, inpatient care, and hypertension in environments ranging from the hospital room to the classroom. Throughout, I seek to understand how information technologies can help young people connect and collaborate in new ways, and the impact these systems have on their health and wellbeing.

In the future, there will be only be more more people like me, with computing at their core yet stretching the boundaries through partnerships across disciplines. The ACM can and should foster young professionals who can serve as leaders in this new computing-centric world, conducting rigorous computing research and practice while deeply engaging and communicating with other fields. Finding ways to support this broader future of computing will not be easy, but I believe it is essential to ensuring the continued vitality of computing and thus the ACM. I am committed to working with other young scholars and computing professionals to lead the way.

Daniel McDuff

Microsoft Research
Seattle, Washington
United States

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~djmcduff/

My work is inherently cross-disciplinary, building on research in human-computer interaction, machine learning and psychology, to design systems that sense and respond to human emotions. In my own professional experiences I found great value in initiatives that bring together researchers and practitioners from difference disciplines. As part of the ACM Future of Computing Academy I would want to engage with other early career members to help encourage interaction between researchers from different computing disciplines within the ACM and beyond. I believe that young researchers benefit from an open cross-disciplinary culture, not only gaining new ideas for research directions but receiving mentorship from those with professional experience in a breadth of different capacities.

Having worked in academia, industry, and as an entrepreneur at different stages of my career, I appreciate the roles that each of these environments plays in research and the development and deployment of new technology. I currently mentor several Ph.D. students as interns and want to continue to promote the interaction between industry researchers and academics. Being a part of the ACM Academy would be a great opportunity to achieve this. To give an example, one issue of importance to many working in the field of computing is that of ethics in AI systems. As an ACM academy member I would like to work toward greater involvement of future generations of computing professionals in this conversation. It is extremely important that there is representation in this debate from many people, not just large technology companies. More broadly, inclusion is important in all areas of research and I believe that being a part of the ACM academy would be an excellent position to help highlight this.

Through my own research I have found that human well-being can be enhanced with the aid of emotion sensing technology. I am working to build algorithms that allow computers to be emotionally intelligent, but this is a means to an end. Ultimately this technology must help people in their daily lives. I would like to promote the role that computing can play in improving well-being and resilience. Being a part of the ACM Future of Computing Academy would personally help me reach these goals by allowing me to grow a network of collaborators who are interested in applying the types of tools I am building in different areas of human-computer interaction research. I am especially keen to continue to build connections between academia and industry research as I have benefited greatly from this in the past.

Wu Liu

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing, China

http://liuwu.weebly.com

I am a Lecturer in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. I received my PhD degree from the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Science in 2015. My current research interests include multimedia analysis and retrieval, and computer vision. In particular, I am interested in applying the techniques from these areas to a broad range of multimedia and vision applications, such as video analytics, multimedia search, intelligent video surveillance, and mobile applications. I have published more than 20 papers in prestigious conferences and journals in computer vision and multimedia, including CVPR, ACM MM, ECCV, IJCAI, ICASSP, ICME, IEEE T-MM, IEEE T-CYB etc. I also applied for more than 10 patents in China. I received Chinese Academy of Sciences Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award in 2016, Best Student Paper Awards at ICME in 2016, Best Paper Runner-Up Awards at BIGCOM in 2016, and the Deans Special Award of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015, etc.

I am the Session Chair of ICIP 2017, GlobalSIP 2017 and CCIS 2016, Special Session Chair of PCM 2016 and ICIMCS 2016, Chair of IEEE BigMM 2017 Workshop, Guest Editor of MVA, and the reviewers of ACM TIST, ACM MM, ICCV, IEEE T-MM, IEEE T-CYB, etc. Besides, I am the CEO of XuanZhiQu Technology Ltd in Beijing, China. Our company focuses on improving peoples intelligent living, especially for old and young people, with artificial intelligence and multimedia computing.

ACM Future of Computing Academy (ACM-FCA) gives me a very valuable platform to expand my network beyond my immediate professional environment. I can get the unique chance to work with other accomplished individuals from diverse areas of computing towards the common goal of shaping the future of the computing community and society, especially in China where ACM is taking deeper roots and growing tremendously. In the future, I will actively engage in the works of the ACM-FCA, include working in one core group/activity, attending at the meets every year. Besides, I will try my best to advertise ACM-FCA and organize the academic activities in China. If possible, I would like to set up the branch of ACM-FCA in China to organize more Chinese young researchers and entrepreneurs to server for the ACM-FCA. Moreover, I hope that: 1) through the bridge of ACM-FCA and financial support of my school, I can organize more activities, e.g., workshop, seminar, and forum, to help the early-career professionals in China to communicate with the outstanding scientists and entrepreneurs in all over the world; 2) through the platform of ACM-FCA, I can better cooperate with the famous research institutions to make excellent contributions to the future of computing community and our society. We have applied the major international (regional) joint research project from China to support the cooperation with foreign research institutions and laboratories; 3) I can organize more university-industry cooperation forums or programs to better discover what technologies the enterprises really need, which will lead our research goals to propose more practical technologies.

Neha Kumar

Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
United States

http://www.nehakumar.org

It is time for computing to make powerful forays beyond the technology-rich, endowed regions of the western, developed world and pay greater attention to the design of affordable and accessible technologies for (and their adoption by) individuals and communities in under-represented contexts, so that the benefits offered by computing can be availed by all. I am committed to ensuring this future for computing–in my own research, my duties as an advisor/mentor, and my service to the research community and the field of human-computer interaction at large.

With growing penetration of mobile technologies in marginalized contexts across the world, we are presented with the potent challenge of leveraging this rising technology use towards improving lives and driving sustainable development, in local and global terms. How might the internet be transformed into a more decentralized and democratic platform in under-connected areas? How might user interfaces be designed to creatively leverage voice and/or emoji for ease of communication among low-literate populations? How might technology-enabled workflows be configured to assist over-strained frontline health workers in their outreach work? Can low-cost virtual reality make learning environments accessible to the poor and uneducated? These are some of the questions my work addresses today. These are also some of the questions that we must collectively address as a community dedicated to computing in order to ensure that technology is accessible to the low-income, visually impaired, rural women in patriarchal surroundings, children living in slum communities–the billions who live their lives outside of technology’s reach and those who I have grown up around myself. It is imperative that the technologies we design are targeted to address the needs and wants of those whose voices are barely audible today.

As a member of the Future of Computing Academy, I intend to drive efforts to make computing inclusive towards the diverse voices that I believe it should stand for. I would like to lead by example in designing carefully, responsibly, and reflexively for vulnerable, ‘non-standard’ technology users, towards feminist futures that draw on the values of participation, pluralism, and advocacy in order to target real, sustainable impact. In addition to advising and mentoring the next generation (particularly under-represented minorities) along these lines, I am committed to concretizing efforts to strengthen and grow the “HCI Across Borders” (HCIxB) community, which aims to make HCI research equal and representative.

With my membership, I hope to strengthen and grow the Academy’s focus on research that is inclusive and instrumental towards the larger, social good. In addition, my work will make visible directions and opportunities for aspiring computing researchers of tomorrow to target social impact, thus targeting both HCI for social good and social good for HCI.

Mirja Kühlewind

ETH Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland

http://mirja.kuehlewind.net

I would like to impact with my research. Good research needs cooperation and exchange of ideas that inspire creativity. As part of the ACM community I am hoping to become part of a group that can support me in this ambition. However, as part of the community I would also like to support others starting a career in Computer Science research, especially young woman. I hope I can be a role model in this community at some point bringing in not only my experience in academic research and project coordination but also in leadership roles in standardization in the IETF. While I think good, creative, and interesting research ideas are the basis for success, I think it is nearly equally important to promote one’s work to other researchers and industry taking the first step to make research real.

Wouter Koolen

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
Amsterdam, Netherlands

http://wouterkoolen.info

I am a young researcher specialising in machine learning. My area is one of the hot and trendy topics that is rapidly changing the world. But I think the best research is still motivated by the (classical) fundamental questions. How can I learn from data to improve my future decisions? What quality of prediction can I achieve in principle? How much data would I need? And what happens if I bring in a computational budget? Interaction? Teaching? Privacy? Studying this landscape of tradeoffs with tools from learning theory, statistics, optimisation, game theory, information theory and algorithm design is extremely productive and rewarding. Yet, having designed a range of insights, tools and techniques, I realise how important it is to invest in the next step, which is transforming theory into impact. Not just for researchers from my area, but for the research community at large and for mankind if possible.

Collectively, the next generation of computing researchers and professionals has a staggering amount of brainpower. This is why the ACM Future of Computing Academy, which aims to connect these individuals to think about the main challenges of our time, is such a wonderful and dearly needed initiative. For how can we use mathematics and computer science to truly change the world? Easier said than done, but the ACM-FCA inaugural meeting might very well provide the occasion where just the right question crystallises. Beyond that, the ACM-FCA will be an excellent opportunity to present my research to a broad yet very smart audience, hear about approaches to succeed at facing world-class challenges and to foster new research connections for big picture collaboration, which we desperately need to proactively design the future.

M. Fahim Khan

The University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan

http://individuals.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~khan/

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” – ACM-FCA perfectly embodies this Alan-Kay aphorism by aiming at shaping the future of computing from a broad societal perspective by simultaneously developing and leveraging the current generation of computing professionals for paving the way to future directions for generations to come. Being a young professional in today’s pervasive-computing era, I feel extremely excited to have been selected as a member of ACM-FCA with a view to co-inventing the future of computing along with fellow professionals by embracing the charms and challenges ahead.

My primary research focus includes developing resource-aware security measures for the IoT and CPS, and exploring the intersection of context-awareness and security in smart environments. At ACM-FCA, however, I want to dedicate my utmost efforts in shaping the future of computing education. Though Computing is one of the youngest scientific disciplines, its rapid evolutionary speed has posed enormous challenges to educators. Some ten years ago, as a young faculty member at Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh, I was included in the computing curriculum committee. At that time, noticing the start of the telecom boom in the country, I played a significant role in revamping the Communication Engineering course. A decade later, as I am tasked with developing a curriculum for a university in one of the technologically most advanced countries, it is astonishing to see how drastically the computing-education landscape has changed. Playing a pivotal role in the curriculum committee of INIAD Faculty, Toyo University, under the Top Global University Project by Japanese government, I have realized appropriate computing education at secondary and tertiary levels will be indispensable for developing not only computing professionals, but also end users in general. With the definition of computing literacy becoming progressively more comprehensive, and concepts and initiatives like lifelong learning and MOOC gaining prevalence, computing education today has a more diverse role to play. It is not only about developing curriculum that proactively incorporates the needs of society, but also about re-examining fundamental components of education systems like pedagogy. Of course, the computing-education community has timely responded to such challenges as we now have ACM/IEEE-CS computing-curricula guidelines, and ACM’s education-related SIGs. As a responsible member of the present generation of computing professionals, I intend to strengthen such efforts from the ACM-FCA platform. Coming from Bangladesh and having had education at a globally top university in Japan, I believe I can bring computing-education inputs to the table from the dual perspective of developing and developed nations.

I am deeply involved in different youth-led activities in computing, science, technology and higher education. Such international and interdisciplinary exposure has enabled me to become a better team-player over the years, which I believe will be useful in forging cooperation with other members at ACM-FCA, as, for working on computing education, networking with individuals from diverse computing domains is imperative. This intellectual nourishment through peer-learning and ACM-mentorship will certainly be a huge boost for realizing my dream of leaving a legacy in computing education.

Ece Kamar

Microsoft Research
Redmond, Washington
United States

https://www.ecekamar.com/

As a researcher studying Artificial Intelligence in an industry lab, I am excited about the progress and developments in the field of computation. Computer systems are becoming more prevalent, computational resources are getting more powerful as widespread sensors and the internet are providing large-scale data. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, we have seen statistical learning techniques reaching near-human level performance for perception tasks and for well-defined domains such as Go. These advances lead to various applications that reach everyday users. Consequently our field becomes part of the daily discourse, where popular press articles discuss the prospects, opportunities and dangers our research offers for the society. I believe as people developing technology, we have responsibility to think over short and long horizon to assess opportunities for impact, to understand challenges and to assess potential issues around current developments. However, our fast-paced endeavors may not leave much space to concentrate on long-term thinking. My limited experience with the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) has shown me that concentrated programs that bring diverse perspectives together around challenge problems can be a very effective way to enable long-term thinking, analysis and exploration. I hope that the Future of Computing Academy will bring similar perspectives to the broad field of computing. In particular, Id personally like one of the focus areas of the Academy to be on AI technologies and its impact on society, including issues around safety, privacy, biases and trust.

One of the factors that excite me about joining the Academy is having the opportunity of shaping a new program with other selected members of my generation. Instead of contributing to a predefined vision, the members of the Academy will define what the focus will be, how to make progress and how to communicate the progress with the academic field, the industry and the public. I hope that the way the academy is shaped can become a legacy for future classes and each new generation can build on this legacy with their vision.

In my field of Artificial Intelligence, both technological and societal issues surrounding the field are multi-disciplinary. For example, issues around the use of personal data for training machine learning models cannot be properly addressed by AI researchers alone. I believe the Academy can bring together a diverse set of early-career experts who can provide new understandings and creative solutions to these pressing challenges through collaboration and discussions.

In the field of computing, innovation happens simultaneously in academia and industry and most progress reaches end users through product development in companies. It is important to have strong interactions between academia and the industry so that innovations can be transferred to the real-world and the challenges recognized in development of products can motivate research. As a researcher doing academic research in an industry lab setting, I believe one of my responsibilities is being the bridge between academic research and product development. I believe I can contribute this perspective to the Academy by being a member.

M. Ehsan Hoque

University of Rochester
Monroe County, New York
United States

http://hoques.com/

My research in Human-Computer Interaction is motivated by the challenges faced by people with social difficulties, who often find interpreting human behavior overwhelming, confusing, and stressful. I draw inspiration in my research from being the primary caregiver of my younger brother, age 16, who is nonverbal and has severe social difficulties. The special education system in this country is in need for standardized and repeatable social interventions beyond the lab, increasing both the quantity and quality of data, inexpensively and unobtrusively impacting fields like mental health. There is a need for awareness on how computing could fundamentally change our education system especially for individuals who have special needs.

It is important to do theoretical work. Also, we should also underscore the importance of applied work that solves the most pressing problems of the society. I would like to work with ACM to highlight and reward efforts that are geared towards improving our quality of life.

There is room for opportunities for ACM to perform international outreach activities especially in the underprivileged and unserved communities. Being educated in Bangladesh, I can affirm to the fact there is a disconnect between what is being taught inside the classrooms and how those skills could be utilized to solve societal problems. I would like to work with ACM to organize initiatives that are aimed towards exploring the emerging needs of the developing societies in which computing could play a profound role. By nurturing the young minds on the latest technical innovations and equipping them with hands-on skills, ACM could seek a fundamental change in thinking and problem-solving abilities of our youth.

Naja Holten Møller

University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark

http://www.diku.dk/english/staff/vip/?pure=en/persons/340853

My motivation for joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy is related to a view on research as an endeavor that should be approached across countries: In my recent research, conducted in Denmark, I encountered computational systems e.g. Epic, a healthcare information system developed for the US healthcare sector. Epic is not only being distributed to Denmark for implementation in the Danish healthcare system, but is being considered by several other countries besides Denmark and the US. As such one of my objectives is to broaden awareness of how research may benefit greatly by sharing experiences which stimulate comparison between the cases we study. I strongly believe in supporting an international network of young researchers for discussing challenges that we face during our research or even researching the same computational systems. Epic is a very concrete example of how I see it as crucial to constantly improve and strengthen our ties internationally across the ACM community. There are several examples of how computational systems increasingly travel across countries; another instance comes from the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry (AEC) where the cases we study include Danish, American and Swiss architecture firms collaborating to modernize Danish hospitals. An important observation is how computational systems in this field of design are increasingly being developed for several purposes drawing on various computing disciplines. To fully understand the potential of such computational systems (e.g. Building Information Modeling) it is essential to also connect with researchers across computing disciplines. The interpretation of the longer lines of development sometimes varies across disciplines: for example, what are the perspectives for 3D-modeling (e.g. used in hospital design) when combined with Virtual Reality? Testing our different interpretations against those of others is not a straightforward task, but it is an important one to broaden our general understanding of the topics we research. Thus, as a researcher I am attempting to bridge between disciplines and so I bring an interdisciplinary perspective to the ACM Future of Computing Academy. In my experience, the achievement of interdisciplinary research is maybe one of the most difficult ones. To meet and debate topics of shared interest is a first critical step to define research agendas that allow for rich studies for the collective benefit of the ACM community.

Brent Hecht

Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
United States

http://www.brenthecht.com

I have dedicated much of my professional life to understanding and addressing problems related to computing technologies that advantage one part of society at the expense of another. Indeed, the driving mission of my career has been working to ensure that computing benefits society as a whole, rather than simply assuming that it will do so. As a result, the formation of the ACM Future of Computing Academy is a thrilling development in my view.

I hope to help the academy establish leadership on two serious issues about which I have long been passionate: (1) computing-related income inequality and (2) bias in intelligent technologies. With respect to the former, many economists believe that the narrow distribution of the technological dividend (i.e. the economic benefits of computing) is becoming an important driver of income inequality [1,2]. My view is that this is a grave issue for computing. The FCA should be a strong positive voice on this issue and, critically, a catalyst for both technological and policy solutions. I will work to ensure that this occurs.

I also hope to help the FCA establish initiatives to address algorithmic bias with respect to disadvantaged demographic groups. I did some of the first work on algorithmic bias in 2010 [3] (for which we received an ACM SIGCHI Best Paper Award) and I have continued this research throughout my career (e.g. my NSF CAREER award is in this space). A particular focus of my ACM FCA endeavors in this area will likely be to encourage the computing community to consider algorithmic bias across many demographic dimensions, including some that are often forgotten in discussions of algorithmic bias. A key example is the urban-rural spectrum: the technology-driven economy has left most rural areas behind, in part because many computing technologies do not work well in rural contexts. At the academy, drawing on my background in the discipline of geography in addition to computer science, I will seek to build bridges between rural areas and the ACM community. These bridges could lead to more rural-aware technologies, among other benefits.

[1] Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. The Second Machine Age. 2014.
[2] Russell, Stuart, et al. Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence. 2015.
[3] Hecht, B. and Gergle, D. 2010. The Tower of Babel Meets Web 2.0: User-Generated Content and Its Applications in a Multilingual Context. Proceedings of CHI 2010.

Julia Haines

Google Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
United States

http://www.juliakhaines.com/

A key issue for computing in the 21st century is diversity and inclusiveness. I wish to be a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy to work on securing a more equitable computing and technology future.

In working with the Future Computing Academy, I am committed to working with leaders across the field of computing to make sure that we focus in particular on the experience of groups that have been under-served in computing and on the ways we can address inequities. I want to make sure we reflect on our field and understand how products, and thus people, may be affected by our biases. And I want to ensure that as a field, we make the right decisions to avoid any group having disproportionate exposure to risk or opportunity. If I have the priviledge to work with the Future Computing Academy, I will launch initiatives to ensure that the next generation of leaders in computing make products that are humane, fair, and inclusive for everyone.

My background bridge the divides that can help us understand and address these issues. I am a tireless advocate for humans who use technology, not just users, and a champion for grounding design and engineering decisions with real-world data. I have a background in Cultural Anthropology and in HCI, and a PhD in Informatics. My PhD work focused on cross-cultural computing and on global and local factors in technology innovation. My studies of startup and innovation culture in the US, Asia, and Latin America revealed the technological, the organizational, and the social factors that drive how computing is put into practice in different contexts. And now in industry, I am developing an agenda at Google to drive equitable research globally in our products.

Its clear that understanding technology innovation is an increasingly prescient challenge not just to manage businesses, address new problems, and create new products. It is critical to understand the societal implications. What is innovation, and is it always good? For whom does it create value? Who else does it impact? My prior academic research on entrepreneurship in the global tech startup scene laid the foundation for continuing, broader work in this area. Now at Google, I am working on products with global reach, and am in a unique position that combines an understanding of the social and cultural, the organizational, and the technological and enables me to begin to address these salient questions as we move into a bold new era of tech innovation. Pushing forward with this agenda will help the ACM prioritize a focus on making technology equitable– for all.

Yun Fu

about acm fca

Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
United States

http://www1.ece.neu.edu/~yunfu/

As an interdisciplinary faculty and cross-domain entrepreneur, I believe ACM Future of Computing Academy will enrich both my research and commercialization experience, reinforce my research passion and entrepreneurial spirit, and broaden my vision via the frontier platform of idea exchange. I am interested in learning new knowledge and gaining experiences in developing and deploying real technology from forum of discussions cross industry, academia and government. It is an excellent opportunity for me to network with new friends from such a selective group, position myself on the frontier of state-of-the-art science. The ACM Future of Computing Academy members represents the future, I am excited to gain publicity and impact through joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy .

In return, I will contribute to share in the excitement and discuss with other outstanding young scientist from various fields about cutting-edge research topics, new innovations and pioneering technologies, and how to commercialize raw technologies from laboratory prototypes. I am Member of Global Young Academy, member of 2015 National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering, Awardee of 2016 IEEE CIS Outstanding Early Career Award, 2014 ONR Young Investigator Award, 2014 ARO Young Investigator Award, and 2014 INNS Young Investigator Award. It will be also my great pleasure to share my experiences with other young fellows on how to gain broad research impact and international recognition with innovations across widely disparate disciplines.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has identified a major educational problem in USA in grades K-12 that students lose interest in mathematics and science as they cannot see much practical use. I would apply my creativity and experience to motivate students to stay interested. I plan to explore Science Education & Outreach activities that extend beyond the YSP/RET programs by partnering with RET participants and other interested K-12 and community college instructors in jointly developing curricular contributions that will enable their students to experience the excitement of research. I will volunteer to engage with the broader community by collaborating with the Museum of Science in Boston (MOS), one of the most favorite public educational sites for K-12, through the Center for STEM Education.

Developed activities will be both educational and entertaining while meeting stringent MOS exhibit requirements such as reusability, reliability, and non-intrusiveness. Projects in MOS include public understanding of research, preK-12 educational outreach, teacher professional development, joint courses, specialized exhibits and programs, and developing middle school curricula for National Center for Technological Literacy. The projects will be developed primarily by undergraduate students, in collaboration with K-12 and community college students and teachers, as well as graduate students. Each activity prototype that is developed will be tested at MOS in one-to-one interactions between a MOS volunteer staff member and a MOS visitor with the purpose of gathering feedback from visitors and identifying improvement directions for a future development phase in which actual permanent exhibits will be developed.

Ruogu Fang

Florida International University
Miami, Florida
United States

http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~rfang/ruogu/index.html

The future of computing needs individuals and innovators who are going to redefine the skyline of the computing world, with insight and vision of the future. To be a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy, I will have the opportunity to be exposed to the edge-cutting theories, thoughts and technology, and exchange ideas with the individuals who lead the transformative changes.

I hope to expand my professional network beyond my immediate contact and strive for the transformative AI in health and medicine research. My research is on the interface of machine learning, brain informatics, neural engineering, image processing and data mining, where the communication and interaction with researchers from all different background would bring the potential for revolutionary and transformative changes in AI for healthcare.

Jason Ernst

Left
Maple Ridge, BC
Canada

http://www.jasonernst.com

The thing that resonates most with me when I think of joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy, is the mission to empower the next generation of computing leaders. When I think back to my career so far, and why I have had the success I have had up till now, it has largely been due to other people. I was extremely lucky to have a Masters and PhD advisor to take a chance on me and let me study under him in graduate school – and this opened up many doors for me, allowing me to really explore my passion for computer science fully. Someone once told me that during grad school – read as much as you can because you’ll never have time to do it ever again – and I took that advice and ran with it. During graduate school I was also lucky to be involved in a large variety of research projects including vehicular traffic simulations, cognitive agents, ground-lithography (prediction of rock and soil underground for mining and drilling), wireless mesh networks, and many others which exposed me to a variety of ideas that further inspired me. In all of these projects I was given a chance by the previous generation of computing leaders. With all of the entrepreneurial work I’ve done, it has always been with lots of help – whether it is the risk of the venture capitalists who funded the projects, or previous entrepreneurs giving advice and volunteering time there is always many people involved in a projects success. This is why I’d like to be involved in this initiative with the ACM – Id like to repay some of the help I’ve received along the way by helping the next generation of computing professionals in any way I can – whether it is passing on my knowledge and experience, advocating and evangelizing for particular tech and by learning from my peers who will also be attending. Additionally, this goal is very compatible with Left, the company I work for. In our company’s core values, one of them is make your mark on the world – and I can’t think of a better way to do this than by working to improve things for future generations. I have several goals which Id like to achieve by joining the ACM FCA. First, I think it is an incredible opportunity to connect with some of the brightest leaders in computing, which is invaluable. Second – I would like to ensure that I remain relevant and connected with the most challenging and interesting technical challenges in the field – and this group together will be in tune with these issues. Finally, Id like to ensure that I am connected to the next generation of computing experts – so that when I need to grow teams or start new projects I have a large network to do so (and in turn give the next generation opportunities like I was given).

Jeronimo Castrillon

TU Dresden
Dresden, Germany

https://cfaed.tu-dresden.de/ccc-about

I was excited when a senior colleague told me about, and recommended me for, the ACM Future of Computing Academy (ACM-FCA). I believe this to be a timely initiative, due to current changes in the underlying technologies used for implementing computing and the ubiquity of software in our world. I am convinced that platforms like the ACM-FCA are badly needed, and cannot think of a better setting than having it under the ACM umbrella. It is an honor for me to be part of the selected group of peers that constitute the ACM-FCA, be at the forefront of discussions, and help shape the future of computing. Within the “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden” (cfaed.tu-dresden.de), I work on ways for programming upcoming computing systems that integrate alternative technologies to CMOS transistors. Fundamentally new computing paradigms should be in the discussions within the ACM-FCA. Being originally from Colombia, I am also interested in expanding the outreach of the ACM.

Luigi De Russis

Politecnico di Torino
Turin, Italy

http://elite.polito.it/people/derussis

When I received the reviews of my first publication, as a Ph.D. student, I remember having mixed feelings about reviewers. On the one hand, they critiqued my work and my writing, sometimes in a negative way. On the other hand, they were considered expert in a domain or community, and they spent time and effort in reading and thinking about my paper. I soon understood that their work was a valuable service to the scientific community. A service that needs preparation and that should be done with the maximum quality and commitment.
I started to think that I would like to be a reviewer, to better experience the academic service. Or, at least, to try to be a reviewer, to do some activities for giving back to (a part of) the scientific community. I began to revise some short conference papers. I was unprepared at the beginning, but the more reviews I did, the more I learnt. I was also able to apply some writing styles to my own papers, and to avoid some errors that I saw in the papers I reviewed. Then, I applied as a department editor for the ACM XRDS magazine. After a short time, I have fallen in love with academic service.

I think that service is important for academia, in general, but it is more important for the development of the individual. It requires a great effort and a lot of time – sure -, but it repays in experiences, opportunities, and social networks.

The ACM Future of Computing Academy is, for me, a beautiful service initiative and a great opportunity for giving back to ACM current (and future) members. Moreover, it is a way to learn something new, to share ideas, and to extend my network. As a member of the ACM-FCA, I hope to help the ACM get younger generation more involved and interested in computing and, in some cases, in academic service. I think that, as a member of the Academy, I will also able to learn a lot about the ACM (e.g., how things work) and I hope to gain skills that could be useful for future ventures.

From my perspective, the computing field (and our society) is facing various challenges, from the respect and inclusion of diversity, to the widespread availability of computers in the daily lives (e.g., mobile and IoT), to the pervasive presence of computing in several non-traditional and emerging disciplines. The future generations, more than mine, have a relationship with computers and technology that is continuously changing and evolving, as well as a different way of communicating and expressing themselves. FCA is, in my opinion, the place where these changes can be discussed and addressed, for advancing the computing field with the benefit of all the generations.

Danish Contractor

IBM Research
New Delhi, India

https://sites.google.com/site/danishcontractor1/home

The ACM FCA presents a unique opportunity to impact and shape the field of computing and I was extremely excited to read about the platform. One of the key areas where I would like to see the academy lead is ethical AI.

While there have been voices in academia concerned about the potential to ‘weaponise’ AI, perhaps a discourse around the ‘weaponization of data’ could also be pertinent. The ACM FCA could be the perfect platform to seed wider discussions and spread awareness about the issues involved.

Weapons were one of the earliest applications of nuclear technology, let us do our best to make sure the primary use of AI and large scale data analytics is for helping humanity and greater good.

Sarah Clinch

The University of Manchester
Manchester, England

http://www.sclinch.com

I am extremely supportive of the ACMs FCA initiative and believe this to be exactly the kind of activity that a forward-thinking professional society should be engaging in to leverage and develop its early career professionals. As a member, I am keen to drive an agenda in three main areas.

First, I believe that the ACM can serve as a vital enabler for early career development. The ACM currently has a strong portfolio of activities for students, including a student membership, student chapters, and targeted conference grants and activities. I am be passionate about supporting the ACM to extend their activities to deliver similar support for early career professionals. As a very early career academic I have found networking and skills development events organized by smaller organisations to be extremely useful. However, access to such events is not universal, and those that exist are often tightly scoped with very narrow purposes. I believe that the ACM is uniquely positioned to offer a broad and integrated set of activities for early career professionals that builds their confidence and networks, while helping them develop skills to ensure a healthy work-life balance and prepare them for a sustainable and rewarding career.

Second, I am keen to champion the promotion of computer science to under-represented groups including those from emerging economies and underrepresented groups (e.g. women, those with disabilities, older populations). Inclusion of these groups is not simply about allowing the discipline to make claims about diversity, but is fundamental to our continued development — providing opportunity to realise a host of under-explored challenges that is far more representative of global society than the relatively narrow view taken by mainstream computing research and industry today. As part of this agenda I would seek to promote a lightweight certification model for ACM-organised events which recognizes inclusive activity, e.g. diversity of conference organization teams, or provision to support those with caring responsibilities.

Finally, I see a need to facilitate events and initiatives that more strongly connect the academic and industrial members of the ACM. Current interactions are often restricted to conferences and workshops which tend to feature a subset of industry ACM members, often from the larger organisations. Promoting a wider set of activities, that are specifically designed for this purpose, would enable knowledge exchange that offers great value to members from both groups. I would hope to work with early career professionals from both academia and industry in order to establish events of common interest.

I feel that I am ideally placed to help contribute to the ACM FCA in these three areas, and more broadly as a diverse set of early career professionals come together to help drive the ACM forward. Further to this, I recognise that participation in the FCA would provide a unique opportunity to network with other forward-thinking early career professionals helping to shape future collaborations, my research, and future career.

Lydia Chilton

Stanford University
Stanford, California
United States

http://hmslydia.com/

Mid-way through grad school, I was struggling. I’d published many well-received papers but was distracted and obsessed with what other people were working on and trying to prove to myself and others that my work was better. This is a dangerous mentality that was wasting a lot of my energy on the anxiety of being the best. My life was changed when I had a short conversation with Professor Gaetano Borriello at the University of Washington. He said that as researchers our job is to “build on the work of others, and show others how to build on our work.” When I heard this, I immediately switched from seeing research as a winner-take-all game, to seeing research as a network with many nodes flowing into each person and many connections flowing out.

The network model of progress is far better and healthier than the winner-take-all model. ACMs publications are already a valuable step towards this mission by communicating new results, problems, and approaches across the subfields of computer science. What I have found especially valuable are articles where an author can tie together the major theme in several of their publications. This shows the more general nature of their solution, which is far more likely to be applicable in other areas. I have actually been able to re-apply some of those general approaches to my own work.

Although the ACM already helps researchers find techniques across subfields we can take this approach even further by helping computer science researchers find the connections to other science and engineering fields.

Björn Brandenburg

Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
Kaiserslautern, Germany

https://people.mpi-sws.org/~bbb/

Compelling to ignore. The future, it seems, cannot come fast enough.

However, the rapid proliferation of cyber-physical technology also comes with great risks: despite all the hype, we must not forget that many of the envisioned CPS are inherently safety-critical in nature. Simply put: fail fast, fail often, Silicon Valleys favorite mantra, and move fast and break things (Zuckerberg) are not the best advice when dealing with critical infrastructure and human life.

Unfortunately, all too often the tech sector, and especially the frenzied startup world, sees caution, regulations, and the scientific process merely as inconvenient annoyances, as inhibitors of progress and innovation. For instance, Uber’s, Tesla’s, and Google’s autonomous vehicle efforts proceed behind closed doors, removed from academic scrutiny, skeptical assessment, and independent validation.

At the core, there is a culture clash: on the one hand, the unstoppable digital revolution with its ever accelerating pace, now setting its sights on the physical world, and on the other hand, the conservative, slow-moving, thorough, and safety-conscious approach that is the hard-won essence of over a hundred years of safety engineering.

If left unresolved, I see the potential for great damage in this conflict, certainly for individuals, but also for computing in general: if the society at large loses confidence, loses trust in computing as the central technology of the 21st century because of a rushed, ill-understood, and ultimately botched rollout of autonomous CPS, the consequence could be a setback, or delay of progress, measured in decades.

In my research, I seek to help mediate this conflict at a technical level by making true safety more affordable: I work towards practical, analytically sound real-time operating systems (a crucial building block for many CPS) that are both provably safe and economically viable.

As part of the FCA, I seek to target the issue at the societal level by representing and advancing the importance of a safety first mentality in education, outreach, and in discussions with regulators, industry, and peers.

Yonatan Bisk

University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute
Los Angeles, California
United States

http://www.yonatanbisk.com

2000s. Much of the growth in computing enrollment is disproportionately present at top tier universities and has been overwhelmingly homogenous in terms of gender and race. Without broad-based support and education, the next generation of scientists, professors, and engineers is fundamentally limited. One important aspect of the FCAs mission should be to create curricula, inform university hiring/operations, and create programs to grow the presence of computing for all.

I have worked in various capacities on the issue of computer science recruitment and education targeted at underrepresented groups. Whether I was running a summer camp, organizing weekend seminars, or traveling to local schools, I constantly found myself having discussions about the type of material to teach, how to prioritize funding, and the lack of continued support available to students after our initial recruitment pitch.

The material we present when doing outreach is fundamentally different from that of most introductory courses, including the AP computer science exams. During an outreach activity, our goal is to encourage participants to develop their intuition for solving problems that are relevant to their experiences in the world, without the use of code or technical jargon. When reviewing applications for NCWIT, I often read about students teaching themselves to program using whatever they have available in the school computer labs (typically MS Excel or Word). While these self-taught students or attendees of our events are prime candidates for pursuing a computing degree, they are not equipped to start an AP course on Java programming, and that should not be the material we use as a gatekeeper for determining entry into the field.

If a student joins a computing program despite having had limited access to computing resources, they are likely to find themselves behind at a top program or fundamentally limited at a smaller college. Additionally, many women and students of color will find themselves in the underrepresented minority group in most computing environments. At all stages of computing education, we need better resources for mentoring and supporting students to slow the leaky pipeline.

Finally, in all of my outreach experiences, I have found myself recreating curricula and often at a loss for an overarching organization I can point to that provides resources for aspiring students to self-study or find community and mentorship. As company recruitment initiatives and educational resources proliferate, we should work together with universities and industry to provide a joint consolidated resource for interested students seeking to advance on their own and for universities and companies looking to create outreach and community engagement programs.

Jeffrey Bigham

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
United States

http://www.jeffreybigham.com

I want to make ACM products and events more accessible, promote the social impact of computing research, and create future publishing models that reaffirm ACMs leadership.

I want to make ACM products and events accessible because all talented and creative students should see a career in computer science as a real possibility. People with disabilities are currently under-served in the STEM fields in higher education and in computing specifically. Beyond the obvious social concerns of this exclusion, STEM fields would be strengthened by the unique contributions that these students stand to make. We should not allow misconceptions of an individuals potential or interest dissuade talented students from pursuing an engineering education.

ACM products and events are currently inaccessible. The PDF documents that represent our research output are not made so that everyone can access them (they dont work with screen readers, are not easily magnified, etc.). One of the activities I’ve led as part of SIGCHI and SIGACCESS is working to make sure our research papers are accessible. I started by volunteering to make papers accessible for CHI. I then contracted with UIST to make their entire program accessible. I donated the money back to UIST as a sponsorship, but this cost was added to the budget going forward. The UIST program continues to be fully accessible. I also organized the initial captioning of SIGCHI videos. Our conferences and the presentations made at them are often inaccessible (venues cannot be reached with wheelchairs, interpreters are not available, etc.). I have served as the accessibility chair for the CHI conference in part to address these problems. I hope to work with ACM to improve accessibility so more people can participate.

Computing is part of nearly every human activity, and often has positive social impact. I think conveying the importance and scope of impact of computing to the public is becoming more important as computing directly impacts the lives of more and more people. I would like to work to improve how we publicize the social impact that we are having in accessibility and other areas, and work to promote these problems as first-class problems within the computing field. A specific goal of mine is to get more undergraduate programs to include technical elements of building accessible technology.

Publishing expectations are changing and that comes with challenges. ACM continues to be relied upon to produce rigorously reviewed research via conference and journal publications; yet, people expect to have immediate access to the latest results. Improvements in technology have allowed people to publish more papers, which communities struggle to effectively review. I dont believe there are easy solutions to these problems, but I would like to help ACM not only adjust to these changes but also reaffirm its leadership.

In summary, I am applying because I want to increase access to the computing field, raise the profile of computing work with social impact, and help ACM remain the leader in computing publishing going forward.

Christine Bassem

Wellesley College
Wellesley, Massachusetts
United States

https://cbassem.wordpress.com/

Women are a huge part of the future of computing, and I would like to do my part in supporting young women in the field.

As a graduate student, I have supported my fellow graduate students acting as a student representative in the CS department at Boston University. Then as an officer in the BU Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (GWISE) student group, in which I initiated, and lead, a mentoring group for mothers in graduate school. I currently tutor and mentor high-school girls, and mentor and advise my undergraduate students at Wellesley College through their academic and technical careers. Moreover, I serve on panels, whenever possible, to share my experience and support current graduate students in the field.

In my opinion, the future generation needs to be fostered starting from elementary school education, and computing needs to be part of our core education. Being a member of the ACM-FCA would allow me to be officially part of an initiative that fosters the future generation of computing. Moreover, it would give me the capacity to address the challenges faced by women throughout their academic life, starting from K-12 education to college and graduate school, and work towards defining and setting the policies that would increase their participation in the field.

Tim Baarslag

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
Amsterdam, Netherlands

http://homepages.cwi.nl/~baarslag

The ACM Future of Computing Academy offers something unique: an inspiring opportunity to connect with and serve the greater scientific computing community, to be part of a long-standing tradition of scientific endeavor, and, with the celebration of the ACM Turing Award, to share and celebrate the achievements of the great minds of our time.

As a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy, I am able to contribute to activities that can bring together the new generation of computing and discuss exciting research ideas with exceptional researchers. The ACM Future of Computing Academy is made up of a strong network of people and mentors that push forward the boundaries of computing and provides a unique chance to be inspired by the most distinguished active scientists. My main drive within the ACM Future of Computing Academy is to promote face-to-face meetings between us, young researchers, and the great leaders of computer science and mathematics, whose mentoring and success stories can serve as an encouragement and inspiration for our future careers.

Bushra Anjum

Amazon Inc.
Irvine, California
United States

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bushraanjum/

Changing world, political uncertainty and rapid pace of innovation, there could not be a better time for someone like me to passionately invest myself in an initiative like FCA. Changing world, political uncertainty and rapid pace of innovation, there could not be a better time for someone like me to passionately invest myself in an initiative like FCA.

I am a 34 year old woman in computing, an immigrant from Pakistan, a PhD in Computer Science, an international academician (5+ years of teaching experience in Pakistan and US), a researcher (15+ journal and conference publications), a book author (ISTE Wiley) and a technical lead at one of the most prominent tech companies of today, Amazon. I have diverse international experience, as an academician and a practitioner, and I am ready to bring that experience to the Academy.

As cliche as it may sound, I do believe that we, young computing professionals, have the power to change the world and build a better future. All we need is a consolidated, well supported forum where we can get together, openly debate our ideas and define our own direction.

I have taught and mentored young CS professionals, both in USA and Pakistan, two countries which are in many ways at two different ends of the technical and social spectrum. ACM, however, operates and influences beyond borders. I am well versed in how social and economic factors affect communication patterns and how young professionals have unique needs and support expectations from professional computing societies like ACM. I understand well how the times are changing at different pace in different parts of the world and have particular thoughts on how ACM should employee a multi-pronged strategy to meet these changing needs. I strongly believe my international experience of working with next generation of CS professionals will be helpful in defining the way forward for ACM for emerging generation of professionals. I am thrilled that I will have such an opportunity via the Academy of Future Professionals.

Why do I wish to join the Academy? Because
1. I believe diversity innovates.
2. I bring unique and valuable leadership experience as a researcher, practitioner and an educator, as a result of my unconventional career path.
3. I bring international perspective and mentoring experience to the group, being an immigrant from Pakistan and a young CS PhD.
4. I am committed to further the goals and mission of the Academy and be part of the group that develops the coherent and influential voice that addresses challenging issues facing the field and society in general.

What do I hope to achieve?
1. Channel and translate my international exposure into being the voice of the next generation of computing professionals.
2. Influence innovation, and shape the future of computing community and society while making sure that technological advancements and social good go hand in hand.
3. Empower others and develop new models for participation, collaboration, and career support to benefit the next generation of computing professionals.
4. Build trust, leadership and cooperation and offer partnership and support among computing professionals to solve the most pressing challenges facing the field and society.

Ganesh Ananthanarayanan

Microsoft Research
Redmond, Washington
United States

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/ga/

Advances in computing are poised to dramatically advance the field and impact society broadly in the immediate future. By being a member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy (ACM-FCA), I want to do my part in shaping its agenda to meet the challenges and fulfill the potential benefits of computing for all.

We are at the cusp (or midst!) of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. The AI revolution is fueled by a confluence of breakthroughs in machine learning (on the back of deep neural networks), copious labeled datasets, and advancements in computer systems to handle data at scales hitherto unseen. These advancements at such a rapid pace is changing the landscape of multiple fields in computing ranging from systems, networking, machine learning, security and even hardware. As part of the ACM-FCA, I intend to work with ACM’s other members in being at the forefront of shaping the change in these fields.

Also, these advancements have impact on society at large. How will self-driving cars and highly personal digital assistants change the way we live our lives? How do we cope with the inevitable loss of jobs due to automation? For instance, we have the exciting opportunity to systematically facilitate and benefit from the human in the loop paradigm in many activities even as AI automates them. I believe that ACM has the responsibility and opportunity to shape the response to this issue while being in the thick of facilitating the very advancements.

Advancements in AI is not the only trend on the horizon. There are also other equally exciting opportunities. What kind of programming models, algorithmic advancements, and systems do we need to support biological endeavors in finding the cure for major diseases like diabetes and cancer? How do we cope with the onslaught of cyber security intrusions in the age of cloud computing? I am excited about these challenges and believe that being in the Academy will help me contribute effectively towards responding to them.

Throughout my career, I have benefited from trusted mentors right from the time before my Ph.D. in India (Chandu Thekkath and Venkat Padmanabhan), during my Ph.D. (Ion Stoica, Randy Katz, and Scott Shenker), and at Microsoft Research (Victor Bahl, Padmanabhan Anandan, and Ramarathnam Venkatesan). At the same time, I have also had times where I have felt the need for sustained long-term mentoring programs outside of my immediate affiliation. The need for mentoring programs is a sentiment echoed by my fellow graduate students too, likely indicating this to be a widespread desire. As part of ACM-FCA, I intend to help develop mentorship programs – mentors for graduate students as well as undergraduate students. Creating ACM symposiums for young computer science researchers to interact with senior members will considerably help their thinking, confidence, and enthusiasm.

Finally, being part of the Future of Computing Academy will help me observe and learn from interacting with the illustrious ACM members and awardees.

Shipra Agrawal

Columbia University
New York City, New York
United States

http://www.columbia.edu/~sa3305

Computing is taking an increasingly central role in the society and world today, where virtually every field either critically depends on computing or is trying to use computing to improve the way things are done today. As a part of this academy, I hope to work with like-minded young individuals to shape the future of computing, in order to make it even moreComputing is taking an increasingly central role in the society and world today, where virtually every field either critically depends on computing or is trying to use computing to improve the way things are done today. As a part of this academy, I hope to work with like-minded young individuals to shape the future of computing, in order to make it even more
Accessible: In virtually every area of science and humanities, motivated individuals are eager to use computing to revolutionize their field and impact society in unprecedented ways. However, computing is not always accessible to these domain experts trained in different kinds of skills. I hope to work on concentrated outreach and training efforts, in order to foster unusual collaborations and make cutting edge computing techniques readily usable for a wider spectrum of researchers.
Multi-disciplinary: The field of computing is a culmination of many different fields of science, engineering and mathematics: physics, algebra, logic, operations research, electrical engineering to name a few. And, it has given rise to many more, e.g., data science, computational biology, financial engineering, computational economics, algorithmic game theory. For continued development and impact of computing, I believe it is essential to preserve and advance the multidisciplinary nature of our field. I will like to help organize workshops and forums in order to achieve the same.
Inclusive: I hope to work towards making the computing society an inclusive and diverse community of researchers, so that we can take advantage of the best motivated minds with diverse ideas, and foster a healthy sustainable work environment where every individual, irrespective of their gender, race or sexual orientation, is motivated to contribute to the best of their abilities.
Exciting: Attracting and challenging young minds is crucial to the success of any field. I hope to contribute towards making computing even more exciting for young students who have a variety of education choices. Some ideas include organizing competitions, challenge problems, prizes, high-school outreach programs, and internship programs.

I am already involved in several activities related to these goals, including activities to enhance exposure of the field to women undergraduates, outreach activities for female high school students, and mentoring undergraduates for research projects and summer internships. Being part of the academy will further these efforts by providing an organized forum, as well as empowering collaboration of the best motivated young researchers from the community to work towards these goals.

Yousra Aafer

Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
United States

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yousra-aafer-a4b77151/

I believe that I can bring a unique perspective to the ACM Future of Computing Academy. First of all, as a female researcher in cybersecurity coming from an underrepresented group, I wish to convey the unique challenges that I have to deal with in my academic research and in my academic life in general (e.g., issues related to gender-equality, gender-specific expectations, seeking professional and academic support for carrier advice in an underrepresented community). Second, as a fresh PhD graduate, I would like to bring to light other issues that I had to face during my PhD course work and research. Although my PhD journey was a wonderful learning experience, I believe that it could have been more rewarding if I learnt about the options and resources that were available to me as a PhD candidate. Third, thanks to the industrial experience that gained through several internships, I would like to emphasize the importance of such opportunities in developing new research perspectives and shaping new ideas that are quite prevalent in today’s computing field.

My past experience during my PhD study, along with my current experience as a postdoctoral researcher have given me various insights into what issues ACM should be addressing in the process of advancing the field of computing. Inspired by those insights, I would like to propose a new model for carrier support that would help the future generations in computing research to become more successful. The model would tackle several aspects of common problems that the future generations are likely to face, based on our present issues. Particularly, I would like to emphasize the importance of women/minorities support in the field of computing and propose new efforts to retain and advance women, especially in the fields where women representation is alarmingly low (such as cybersecurity). Besides, I would like to present a new initiative targeted towards first year PhD students and other students (graduates and senior undergraduates) who are interested in pursuing a research carrier. The initiative aims to empower these students with various resources and skills that are necessary to lead productive research (e.g., through mentoring and professional advising, encouraging industrial exposure, introducing available academic resources, usually overlooked by first year PhD students).

I believe that joining the ACM Future of Computing Academy is a great opportunity for me, not only to define new ACM initiatives that will help the future generations in the field of computing, but also to grow my personal networks across different disciplines in the field of computing. Being part of such a strong community would definitely allow me to grow more professionally through the extended support of more senior members and recognized figures in the field of computing.

Future of Work Group

FCA's FUTURE OF WORK GROUP

Group Members