Newswise — To celebrate the grand opening of the world's most powerful university-based supercomputing center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will host a presidential colloquy Sept. 7 featuring five of the country's foremost leaders in science, technology, and innovation.
America's pre-eminence in information technology is one of the primary factors behind the nation's leadership position in the world of science. The presidential colloquy at Rensselaer will examine how the United States can best develop and tap its IT infrastructure to maintain its position as a global leader — to explore radically new approaches to harness computational tools to advance discovery and innovation in the 21st century.
The colloquy, titled "The Future of Computationally Enabled Discovery and Innovation," will include the following participants:
"¢ Shirley Ann Jackson (moderator) President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
"¢ Arden L. Bement Jr. Director, National Science Foundation
"¢ John E. Kelly III Senior Vice President & Director of Research, IBM Corporation
"¢ John H. Marburger III Science Advisor to the President, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
"¢ Charles M. Vest President, National Academy of Engineering
The discussion will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in the auditorium of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies on the Rensselaer campus. It will be followed immediately by a "virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony" featuring President Jackson, John Kelly, and New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.
The Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI), the result of a $100 million partnership involving Rensselaer, IBM, and New York state, was recently ranked seventh in the world, and it is the most powerful of any system based at a university, according to the 29th edition of the closely watched Top500 list. The center is designed to continue advancing semiconductor technology to the nanoscale, while also enabling key nanotechnology innovations in the fields of energy, biotechnology, new materials, arts, and medicine.
As part of the CCNI grand opening celebration, Rensselaer also is hosting a National Science Foundation symposium about cyber-enabled discovery and innovation. The event, which will be held Sept. 5 and 6, will feature technical presentations by scientists and engineers addressing the complexity of the interactions of cyber and physical worlds.
The Sept. 7 colloquy will be Web cast live and archived. More information is available online at: http://www.rpi.edu/ccni/colloquy
About Rensselaer Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation's oldest technological university. The university offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the humanities and social sciences. Institute programs serve undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals around the world. Rensselaer faculty are known for pre-eminence in research conducted in a wide range of fields, with particular emphasis in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and the media arts and technology. The Institute is well known for its success in the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace so that new discoveries and inventions benefit human life, protect the environment, and strengthen economic development.
RSS