Testifying on the NITRD Act
This morning I will be one of four witnesses testifying before the Committee on Science and Technology of the US House of Representatives. The purpose of the hearing is to review proposed changes to the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Act of 2009. NITRD is a key piece of legislation that provides oversight and coordination of IT research across more than 13 federal agencies, including NSF. For computing research, it is one of the most important elements of federal support.
Last year, Dan Reed led an assessment of the NITRD program for PCAST, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. This assessment provided quite a few important recommendations for improvements to NITRD including, among other things, new support for research in the emerging field of cyber-physical systems (the science of computing integrated with the physical world). The major focus of the hearing this morning will be on how well the new legislation addresses the recommendations of the PCAST assessment.
This will be my first experience testifying before a congressional committee. Wish me luck!
The hearing begins at 10am on Wednesday, April 1. The webcast will be available on the House S&T Committee web site at http://science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?newsid=2401.
Peter Lee @ April 1, 2009
I watched the hearing. I hope that the committee got the message about increasing funding for basic research that doesn’t appear to have a commercially viable use in the near-term.