SGER: Vignettes: The Promise of Information Technology

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While advances in information technology (IT) change our lives, drive our economy and transform the conduct of science, it takes 15-20 years for research in IT to be transformed into industrial production. In a few decades, we will depend upon research begun tomorrow or next year to provide the transforming ideas for the future. When this is coupled with the declining enrollments in computing programs, the problem becomes starkly drawn. This series of vignettes will highlight different problems for which IT research can help offer solutions. The problems range from enabling a general improvement in life across the planet, to the design of a new Internet. Approximately a dozen vignettes will be illustrated with high impact graphics. The vignettes will provide examples of possible transformations that are accessible to the non-specialist. Additional links will also be provided, if the reader chooses to gain a deeper understanding. One anticipated result is the generation of more interest in computing science as a discipline in colleges and universities, as well as enhanced public understanding of the role of research in developing new ideas and a strong economy.