Invited Talks
![[SIGGROUP]](/siggroup/images/logo-s.gif){kind=logo}
![[SIGCHI]](/sigchi/images/sigchi54x47.gif){kind=small}
![[ACM]](/images/sigs/acmgbl.gif)
Opening Plenary (Monday, December 4, 9:00am - 10:30am, Ballrooms C & D)
- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
-
Robert D. Putnam,
Harvard University, USA
Over the last generation, Americans have deserted the voting booth, the church pew, the union hall, the PTA, the family dinner table, and even the bowling league and coffee klatch. This resulting loss of social capital -- ties of trust and reciprocity that further collective action -- has impaired our ability to provide well-functioning schools, safe streets, rapid economic growth, effective government, and even healthy lives. Americans have addressed similar problems at earlier periods in our history. If we are to do so again, computing and communications technology will have to be part of the solution, suggesting an important role for CSCW researchers and developers.
About the speaker: Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He is also the director of the Saguaro Seminar, a national workshop for civic leaders on civic engagement. Previously, he served as the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Trilateral Commission. In June, Simon and Schuster published his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. He is the author of six previous books, including, most recently, the award-winning Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Prospect, and many other publications. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
More information about Bowling Alone can be found at the web site http://BowlingAlone.com.
Invited Talk (Monday, December 4, 2:30pm - 4:00pm, Ballroom C)
- IT2: An Information Technology Initiative for the Twenty-first Century -- NSF Plans for Implementation
-
Ruzena Bajcsy,
Assistant Director, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation, USA
This presentation is divided into two parts. In the first, the IT2 Initiative is explained in some detail. We shall elaborate on the scientific content of this program, pose some open questions, and outline the path we at NSF plan to pursue to achieve the program goals. In the second part of the presentation, we shall discuss the identity of computer science as a scientific discipline and its relationship to other physical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and molecular biology. We shall also focus on the "information science of computer science" and, in particular, what lessons we can derive from these other disciplines with respect to the representation of information content. Finally, we shall speculate on the future of our discipline and the challenges stemming from it. We hope to convey the excitement of perhaps a new emerging discipline anchored in information science.
About the speaker: Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy ("buy chee") is Assistant Director for the Computer Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) at the National Science Foundation. As head of NSF's CISE directorate, Dr. Bajcsy manages a budget of approximately $300 million annually. Dr. Bajcsy is a pioneering researcher in machine perception, robotics and artificial intelligence. She is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania both in the Computer and Information Science Department and in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department and is a member of the Neuroscience Institute in the School of Medicine. She is also director of the university's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Laboratory, which she founded in 1978. Dr. Bajcsy has done seminal research in the areas of human-centered computer control, cognitive science, robotics, computerized radiological/medical image processing and artificial vision. She is highly regarded not only for her significant research contributions but also for her leadership in the creation of a world-class robotics lab, recognized world wide as a premiere research center. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering as well as the Institute of Medicine. She is especially known for her wide-ranging, broad outlook on the field and cross-disciplinary talent and leadership, successfully bridging such diverse areas as robotics and artificial intelligence, engineering and cognitive science.
Closing Plenary (Wednesday, December 6, 4:30pm - 6:00pm, Ballrooms C & D)
- Got a Minute? How Technology Affects the Economy of Attention
-
Warren Thorngate,
Professor, Psychology Department, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada
It is impossible to get information in or out of our head without paying attention. Yet attention, as Herbert Simon has noted, is a limited resource. As a result, exchanging attention for information not only defines communication, it is also provides the sufficient conditions for an economy of attention based on principles rather different than those taught in traditional economics courses. Some of these principles allow us better to understand the recursive evolution of information, communication and attention technologies, the first two assisting us to produce and distribute information, the last assisting us to consume it. Other principles allow us to speculate about the social and organizational consequences of this recursive evolution by distinguishing information that reduces demand for additional attention from information that increases it. My talk will outline some of the principles of attentional economics and sample some of their implications for Computer Supported Cooperative Work.
About the speaker: Following an unsuccessful career as a classical guitarist, Warren Thorngate received his BA in Psychology and Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, then fled to Canada to obtain two more psychology degrees at the University of British Columbia, specializing in the study of human decision making and social behavior. Twenty-five years ago he began to write about evidential statistics, the limits of research methods, the evolution of adjudicated contests and the economics of attention, ideas leading him to a term as president of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology but otherwise ignored. A chance opportunity for adventure led him to spend over a decade developing and evaluating computer mediated communication and information science projects in Latin America, culminating in the creation of Internet facilities at the University of Havana. While working on these projects, he became a founding member of the Computer User Research and Evaluation (CURE) group at Carleton University. Good fortune and helpful colleagues allowed him to serve as visiting professor in Berkeley, Leningrad, Melbourne, Havana, Santiago, Warsaw and Tehran. He is currently writing a book on the Economics of Attention which will include ideas from this presentation.
Last updated: September 15, 2000