Celebrating 50 Years of Computing History

If you had the chance to attend Judy Estrin's talk a few weeks ago about her book Closing the Innovation Gap, then you heard quite a bit of solid information about the need to strengthen the basic research infrastructure in the US. In her book, Estrin lobbies for a renewed focus in the US on basic research that allows breakthroughs, like the Internet, that require 30 years to incubate. As the US competes with the rest of the world we compete with the massive populations of India and China that, due to their sheer size, have more honors students than the US has students. We need a strengthened infrastructure to build a strategic workforce and not just a commodity workforce.

The University of Cincinnati will host the conference Celebrating 50 Years of Computing History next week, November 10th and 11th. At this conference you will have the chance to hear from some of the original researchers that made the breakthroughs that allow computing as we know it today. You'll also have the opportunity to understand some of the foundations that Estrin discusses and just what the scope of basic research is.

- Andy