Communications - July 2010

Conference;|;DOI: 10.1145/1785414.1785426
Sarah;Underwood
Visions of the future
ACM joined forces with the British Computer Society
to deliver its first academic research conference in Europe.

DeLeGaTes FroM aFriCa, Eu- rope, and North America gathered at the University of Edinburgh in April to discuss the latest research in computer science and listen to innovative project proposals for the U.K. Computing Research Committee’s Grand Challenges program.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, president of ACM and professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, opened the ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science 2010 conference, alongside British Computer Society President Elizabeth Sparrow.

Hall discussed the importance of diversifying ACM beyond the U.S. and, after welcoming more than 100 conference delegates, handed over the proceedings to computer scientist Michael Foreman of the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Foreman paid tribute to the recently deceased Robin Milner, eminent computer scientist, co-creator of the Grand Challenges, and ACM A.M. Turing Award winner, and proposed a Milner symposium next year to celebrate the scientist’s work.

Pho ToGRAPh by ChRIs MAlColM

Ross Anderson, professor of secu-
rity engineering at the University of
Cambridge, delivered the first keynote
speech, “The Dependability of Com-
plex Socio-Technical Systems.” Ander-
son described the evolutionary con-
vergence of branches of knowledge,
including philosophy, mathematics,
and economics, into computing, and
questioned how it should advance.
“We are responsible for everything,”
said Anderson, “and must deal with
the global-scale socio-technical sys-
tems that are emerging and will be the
way the world works.”
The second keynote speaker, Nicolò
Cesa-Bianchi, professor of computer
science at the University of Milan,
discussed “The Game-Theoretic Ap-
proach to Machine Learning and Ad-
aptation.” To consider whether game

the acm-Bsc Visions conference was held at the university of edinburgh informatics forum.

theory could complement or surpass statistics in the analysis of algorithms that learn and adapt, Cesa-Bianchi presented research that replaces statistics to describe an interaction between a learning agent and a changing environment with a repeated game between an agent and environment. This approach, he says, is particularly appropriate to machine learning in arbitrary and adversarial environments.

“things have
changed, and
our work has
become more
interdisciplinary,”
notes Wendy hall.

The other keynote speakers were
Jon Kleinberg, professor of computer
science at Cornell University, who pre-
sented “Exploring the Structure of On-
line Social Networks: the Roles of Posi-
tive and Negative Links in Network
Interaction,” and Barbara Liskov, a
professor at the Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology and ACM A.M. Tur-
ing Award winner, who discussed “The
Power of Abstraction.”
Among the conference’s sessions
covering subjects from ubiquitous sys-
tems to theoretical computing and the
digital economy, one proved particu-
larly timely. As a massive cloud of ash
from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano
shut down air traffic across Europe,
Ken Anderson, associate professor of
computer science at the University of
Colorado, outlined a vision for tech-
nology-mediated support for public
participation in mass emergencies and
disasters.

Following Visions 2010, Hall introduced the Grand Challenges session. “Things have changed,” said Hall, “and our work has become more interdisciplinary, feeding into areas such as health care, climate change, and security. We need to make evolutionary, not revolutionary, change, but a new list of Grand Challenges will emerge.” Eighteen proposals for the Grand Challenges, a program supported by the U.K. Computing Research Committee, were added to nine existing projects, with a decision on the proposals expected over the summer. The candidates included a project using software engineering to achieve zero-carbon buildings by 2019, a program to develop information and communication technologies for a global population of nine billion people in 2050, and five proposals about health care and independent living.