Key Challenges in Advancing Drone Computing 

The report identifies twelve key technical challenges encompassing the ways in which drone computing must advance to reach its fullest potential in the next ten years. These areas include:

• Scaling to millions of drones
• AI intelligence and assurance
• Edge-cloud continuum and real-time coordination
• AI autonomy and agentic systems
• Data, training, and validation infrastructure
• Critical infrastructure protection
• Building reliable fleets from non-deterministic agents
• Trust, security, and distributed authentication
• Next-generation drone networks
• Human-AI partnership and scalable insight
• Standards, certification, and regulation
• Workforce development and education

The Role of Industry

The specific ways these challenges can be addressed are then outlined in several computing milestones to be completed by 2035: 

• Create simulation-to-reality pipelines that help bridge the sim-to-real gap 
• Establish integration testbeds (physical + digital) supporting graduated complexity, realistic failure injection, and shared milestones for reproducible research
• Establish scalable and performant drone-based entity tags and key infrastructure for identification and tracking at device level 
• Develop real-time-aware autonomy frameworks enabling analyzable composition and runtime adaptation and allowing drones and edge nodes to negotiate sensing rates, model fidelity, and control frequencies under enforced safety constraints and predictable timing guarantees

Industry plays a critical role in advancing these milestones — and, crucially, in maintaining U.S.  technological leadership in the area of autonomous systems broadly. Below, see the report’s specific recommendations:

• Launch regulatory sandboxes

Precedents in the wireless and automotive sectors show that standards for interoperability could reduce integration costs by 40-60%. They would both speed up the time-to-market as well as allow smaller companies to participate.  Working with policymakers, industry also must commit to end-to-end pipelines for the development, deployment, and low-cost operation of drones. 

• Participate in testbed consortia

Doing so would validate approaches on real hardware and influence standards development.

• Share integration experiences and failure mode learnings

This information would inform research directions and prevent others from repeating costly mistakes. 

• Invest in workforce development

This future requires interdisciplinary systems engineers. Partnering with universities can help make sure graduates have essential skills for industry participation in this emerging area. 

• Expand domestic commercial drone manufacturing and coordinate internationally to preserve U.S. leadership

Few U.S. companies produce commercial drones capable of executing the advanced technologies outlined in the report. Expanding domestic manufacturing capacity would strengthen supply chain resilience, address concerns around sovereignty, and enable rapid iteration and learning that is essential for a competitive advantage. To that end, U.S. industry participation is essential to maintain technological leadership as international competitors aggressively pursue autonomous systems markets, especially in Asia and Europe where regulatory experimentation is advancing rapidly. 

Read the Full Report

The full report, including the in-depth explanation and rationale for these recommendations, is available below. We encourage all members of the computing community to read it.

Read the Report Here

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more reports like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

Selected Research Projects

Computational Animal Communication

Led by Kenny Q. Zhu, University of Texas at Arlington

Recent advances in self-supervised learning, multimodal foundation models, and web-scale data collection create an unprecedented opportunity to transform this landscape. The Arlington Computational Linguistics Lab at the University of Texas at Arlington is pioneering a new computational paradigm for decoding animal communication from large-scale, minimally annotated multimodal data. Initial studies of domestic dogs and cats suggest that their vocalizations contain discrete acoustic units and reusable patterns that encode behavioral, social, and environmental context, challenging the traditional view that animal vocalizations are largely holistic signals.

This vision extends far beyond understanding companion animals. It seeks to establish Computational Animal Communication as a new interdisciplinary field that develops general computational theories, algorithms, and foundation models for discovering, representing, and interpreting communication systems across species. Such advances could transform animal welfare, conservation, and human-animal interaction while providing a unique window into the evolution of intelligence and communication. More broadly, uncovering alternative computational principles underlying biological communication may inspire fundamentally new paradigms for artificial intelligence that complement language-centric approaches and expand the foundations of intelligent systems.

Punishing Agents

Led by Maria Gini, University of Minnesota

What do you do when an agent cannot be trusted? Expel it from the group? Put it in a prison? None of the methods human societies use seems to be appropriate for agents.  If an agent is removed, another can be created to replace it. Same if an agent is put in a prison. Unless the method used to create agents guarantees that only collaborative agents will be created and/or will be selected, it does not seem to be possible to guarantee that no agent will be able to infiltrate the group.

Attempts have been made to have conventions for agents that negotiate on tasks to do, but they do not work for all types of tasks. The impact on societies of agents of rewards and punishments has been studied showing that they do not work. Reputation seems to be more useful to foster social behavior.

Will things be different for physical agents (i.e., robots)? It is much easier to control a physical agent, take it out of a group, and replace it with a new agent that has been tested for compliance with the rules. Much more research is needed.

Emerging Technologies: Digital Accessibility

Led by Vlad Roznyatovskiy, Samsung Research America

This research initiative proposes a systems-oriented agenda for accessibility spanning hardware, operating systems, programming tools, artificial intelligence, security, and human–computer interaction. Its central goal is to develop computing systems that can adapt to differences in sensory, motor, cognitive, linguistic, and situational ability without requiring users to conform to a single assumed mode of interaction. Rather than treating accessibility as a downstream interface problem, the initiative will investigate how accessibility requirements can be embedded into system architectures, data models, development frameworks, evaluation methods, and procurement standards from the outset.

A major focus will be the relationship between accessibility and language inclusion. Interfaces centered on written English, conventional keyboards, and standardized commands exclude not only people with disabilities, but also users across languages, literacy levels, dialects, and cultural contexts. Multimodal systems that combine speech, gesture, vision, symbols, translation, personalization, and context-sensitive assistance can reduce both disability-related and linguistic barriers. In this sense, accessibility research offers a pathway toward computing that is less English-dominant, more adaptable, and more globally usable.

The initiative will pursue new interaction techniques, adaptive and multimodal system architectures, accessibility-aware software engineering tools, community-governed datasets, and evaluation frameworks that measure real-world task completion across diverse populations. By positioning accessibility as a driver of foundational computer science research, this program aims to produce systems that are more inclusive, resilient, intuitive, and capable of supporting a wider range of human abilities and forms of communication. The expected outcome is not only broader access to computing, but a new generation of interfaces and systems whose flexibility benefits all users.

Stay in Touch with CCC

CCC looks forward to hearing more of the inspiring work shaping the future of computing. We encourage all members of the computing community to subscribe to CCC here to be notified of more opportunities like this, and to follow our LinkedIn Showcase Page for the latest CCC resources and updates.

Key Challenges in Advancing Drone Computing 

The report identifies twelve key technical challenges in which drone computing must advance in order to support drones as part of our national infrastructure in the next ten years. These areas include:

• Scaling to millions of drones
• AI intelligence and assurance
• Edge-cloud continuum and real-time coordination
• AI autonomy and agentic systems
• Data, training, and validation infrastructure
• Critical infrastructure protection
• Building reliable fleets from non-deterministic agents
• Trust, security, and distributed authentication
• Next-generation drone networks
• Human-AI partnership and scalable insight
• Standards, certification, and regulation
• Workforce development and education

Critical Paths for Researchers

Academia plays a critical role in many of these challenges. The following are key computing milestones identified for the next decade to maximize the impact of non-military drones: 

• Create simulation-to-reality pipelines that help bridge the sim-to-real gap 
• Establish integration testbeds (physical + digital) supporting graduated complexity, realistic failure injection, and shared milestones for reproducible research
• Establish scalable and performant drone-based entity tags and key infrastructure for identification and tracking at device level 
• Develop real-time-aware autonomy frameworks enabling analyzable composition and runtime adaptation and allowing drones and edge nodes to negotiate sensing rates, model fidelity, and control frequencies under enforced safety constraints and predictable timing guarantees

Alongside industry, funding, and policy recommendations to reach these milestones, the report outlines necessary shifts and advancements specifically for researchers to help reach the 2035 vision:

• Break disciplinary silos to address the systems integration talent gap
  • Fewer than a dozen graduate programs currently produce engineers with combined AI-aerospace-security expertise
  • Autonomous drone research demands collaboration between traditionally separated communities in robotics, networking, AI, security, and human-computer interaction 
• Engage with real deployments to understand practical constraints
  • In particular, the labor shortage in aviation and infrastructure inspection creates immediate demand for autonomous solutions 
• Share datasets and frameworks to accelerate collective progress and avoid duplicative effort across institutions

Read the Full Report

The findings of the report are informed by discussions at the CCC Computing on the Fly visioning workshop held December 1-2, 2025 in Washington, D.C. — generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and IEEE Computer Society — which convened 47 cross-sector experts to articulate a vision for drone development. These discussions resulted in the final Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing report, authored by Kevin Butler (University of Florida), Christopher Stewart (The Ohio State University), Nils Aschenbruck (Osnabrück University), Weisong Shi (University of Delaware), Ufuk Topcu (University of Texas), and Deborah Silver (Rutgers University).

We encourage all members of the computing research community to read the full report at the link below.

Read the Full Report Here

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more reports like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

Last week at the CRA Summit in Prior Lake, MN, members of the CCC Council Executive Committee hosted

The format of the session was built around a card game CCC developed for this kind of brainstorming called Speculative Execution. In small teams, participants drew from two decks: one featuring computing substrates like quantum or biological computing, and one featuring application domains ripe for transformation, from agriculture to email. Each team combined whatever cards they drew and pitched a vision for how that substrate could address a real problem in the application, with the crowd serving as both audience and judge.

Speculative Execution Winners

The session did what it set out to do. It produced out-of-the-box ideas that might not fit neatly into a grant proposal, brought researchers from different fields into direct conversation, and generated a fair amount of fun along the way. But across the two rounds, two particular pitches stood out.

Round one went to Carla Brodley (Northeastern University), Rachel Pottinger (University of British Columbia), Alan Marchiori (Bucknell University), and Christine Julien (Virginia Tech), whose pitch imagined a rapid response temporary robot pothole filler. Their team proposed autonomous units that could deploy to fill potholes on a temporary basis, buying time and improving safety until permanent repairs by humans could be scheduled. The substrate they chose was Robotics, and the application they wanted to improve was Infrastructure Maintenance.

Round two went to Zachary Tatlock (University of Washington), Casey Deccio (Brigham Young University), Stefan Andrei (Cleveland State University), Jen Markoff (University of Washington), and Antony Hosking (The Australian National University), who pitched executable email. Their concept turned email from something to be sorted through into something where only the most relevant messages to you would be sendable. Their substrate of choice was Heterogeneous Computing, with an application to Email.

Both pitches captured what the session was after: unlikely combinations that push researchers to think in long-term, unfamiliar directions.

Download the Game

Want to try the game with your own computing department? The card game, Speculative Execution, is available as a PDF here. The PDF includes instructions for gameplay as well as guidance for teams as they develop the pitches for their ideas.

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is thrilled to announce our expansion onto a whole new platform:

What to Expect on This New Platform

Our Medium page is a place for leaders in computing research to write directly for a wider audience. These are pieces from experts, in their own voice, about what they think matters right now.

The kind of writing you can expect to find on our new page includes:

• Out-of-the-box ideas or emerging perspectives on computing research
• Deep dives into specific computing challenges or phenomena
• Critical issues or dilemmas the public needs to understand
• The story of why a researcher cares about their particular corner of the field
• Anything else in computing research worth bringing to more people!

Read the Latest Articles and Follow Us

Computing shapes how people live and work in so many ways, and this page is a forum for public conversation around the research happening now. For members of the computing research community, it’s a place to raise pressing and thought-provoking questions, and to do it somewhere anyone can read and respond.

Our Medium posts are written by CCC affiliates, the experts and leaders who comprise the CCC Council, lead CCC visioning workshops, and more. Reading and discussion are open to everyone, so follow the page, read the latest article, and join the conversation in the comments. Catch new articles the moment they’re posted using the link below.

Follow Us on Medium Here

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more announcements like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

The report envisions a decade in which drones move goods, medical supplies, and information at a scale comparable to national infrastructure investments like highways and the electric grid. Potential applications include natural disaster detection drones that spot wildfire sources within minutes, medical supply chains that bypass ground congestion to reach rural hospitals, and nationwide fleets that continuously inspect bridges and power lines. Realizing this future, however, requires closing what report authors call a “capability gap,” where hardware and aspirations are outpacing the software and systems needed to operate safely at scale.

The lead authors of this report are Kevin Butler (University of Florida), Christopher Stewart (The Ohio State University), Nils Aschenbruck (Osnabrück University), Weisong Shi (University of Delaware), Ufuk Topcu (University of Texas), and Deborah Silver (Rutgers University). The findings are a result of discussions at the CCC Computing on the Fly visioning workshop held December 1-2, 2025 in Washington, D.C. — generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and IEEE Computer Society — which convened 47 cross-sector experts to articulate a vision for drone development over the next ten years.

Core Challenges

The report identifies twelve technical challenges that must be addressed to realize the transformative potential of drone technology:

• Scaling to millions of drones
• AI intelligence and assurance
• Edge-cloud continuum and real-time coordination
• AI autonomy and agentic systems
• Data, training, and validation infrastructure
• Critical infrastructure protection
• Building reliable fleets from non-deterministic agents
• Trust, security, and distributed authentication
• Next-generation drone networks
• Human-AI partnership and scalable insight
• Standards, certification, and regulation
• Workforce development and education

These twelve challenges and proposed approaches to them form the basis of the report, laying out a multifaceted path forward for the evolution of done technology. 

A Roadmap to 2035

The report also outlines specific technical milestones that represent the minimum progress needed to reach the 2035 vision. These milestones include:

• Creating simulation-to-reality pipelines to bridge the sim-to-real gap
• Establishing integration testbeds to make research more reproducible
• Establishing scalable and performant drone-based entity tags and key infrastructure
• Developing real-time-aware autonomy frameworks to help drones and edge nodes conform to safety constraints and predictable timing guarantees

Reaching these milestones requires effort from broad members of the computing research community. The report provides the following key actionable recommendations for stakeholders like funders, researchers, policymakers, and industry:

• Research funders should coordinate federal investment, establish a national testbed consortium, and target the first 1,000 drone demonstration by 2028. 
• Researchers should break disciplinary silos across robotics, networking, AI, and security, engage with real deployments, share datasets, and build interdisciplinary graduate programs.
• Policymakers should adopt open standards, participate in testbeds, share failure-mode learnings, and fund workforce development efforts.
• Industry should adopt proactive frameworks across Actor, System, and Infrastructure pillars, launch regulatory sandboxes, and coordinate internationally to preserve U.S. leadership. 

Read the Full Report

The Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing report is available now. It gives a detailed assessment of the challenges ahead and clear, actionable steps toward safe, scalable drone operations.

We encourage all members of the computing community to read the full report here.

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more reports like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching a Call for Innovative Research Visions (CIRV) to discover exactly that kind of forward-looking work: research that’s still early, perhaps a bit speculative, but has the kind of catalytic potential that could reshape where the field goes long-term. CCC will use these submissions to help guide the focus of future visioning Task Forces, so this is a direct line from what’s happening in your department or organization to what the broader community organizes around.

Submitting is straightforward: share an abstract or short description of your department or organization’s most visionary research. The research project could:

• Inspire a brand-new CCC visioning Task Force
• Lead to a researcher being invited to shape a visioning initiative alongside CCC Council Members
• Be highlighted on CRA/CCC channels

For academic units, we welcome one submission, and submissions must come from the leader of the academic unit (department chair or equivalent).

What We’re Looking For

The form is quick to fill out. You’ll need:

• Contact information: your name, title, and email
• Institution information: institution name and department/school/college or team/division name
• Research details: the name of the lead researcher on the project, plus a brief description or abstract of the research (with links to any published papers, if available)

Submit Today

The form closes 11:59 PM ET on July 23, 2026. We look forward to hearing about inspiring computing research taking place!

Submit a research project here

Cindy Bethel

“I am honored and excited to serve on the CCC Council because I strongly support its mission to catalyze innovative, high-impact research that addresses pressing national and global challenges. I look forward to contributing perspectives on responsible, human-centered approaches to computing and artificial intelligence that help shape research visions grounded in ethics, trust, and real-world impact.”

Cindy L. Bethel, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and holds the Billie J. Ball Endowed Professorship in Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU). She is a Senior Member of both IEEE and ACM and directs the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) Lab. Since joining MSU in August 2011, Dr. Bethel has managed nearly $15 million in grant funding and has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and extended abstracts/posters.

Dr. Bethel recently served as an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) Program Director at the National Science Foundation from 2022 to 2025. Earlier in her career, she was an NSF/CRA/CCC Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social Robotics Laboratory at Yale University and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of South Florida (USF). She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from USF in August 2009, with doctoral minors in Psychology and Applied Statistics. Her research spans human-robot interaction, robotics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, and psychology. Her work focuses on the design, evaluation, and application of robotic and AI-enabled systems for therapeutic support, human-autonomy and human-AI teaming, law enforcement, search and rescue, and military operations.

Vipin Kumar

“Computing is entering a period of unprecedented opportunity, particularly at the intersection of AI and scientific discovery. I am excited to serve on the CCC Council and help bring the research community together to identify emerging opportunities, shape future directions, and maximize the societal impact of computing.”

Vipin Kumar is Regents Professor and William Norris Endowed Chair in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research has made foundational contributions to data mining, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance computing, and he is widely recognized for pioneering work in applying AI to scientific discovery and societal challenges.

Kumar is a Fellow of AAAI, ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and SIAM, and a recipient of the ACM SIGKDD Innovation Award, the IEEE Sidney Fernbach Award, and the IEEE Taylor L. Booth Education Award. He currently serves on the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, a global body of leading experts established by the United Nations General Assembly to provide independent scientific assessments and guidance on AI’s opportunities, risks, and societal impacts.

Carl Landwehr

“I volunteered in order to bring a broad and deep perspective to the CCC Council’s activities, based on my years as a researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory, as program director at NSF and IARPA, consultant to DARPA, NSA, and many other organizations.”

Carl Landwehr’s career focused on cybersecurity research, serving at the Naval Research Laboratory, NSF, IARPA, and DARPA. He served at NSF as Program Director in CISE 2001-2004 and 2008-2011; he was the founding PD for SaTC and received the Director’s Award for Excellence in Program Management, 2005. He is an IEEE Fellow, a member of the National Cyber Security Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Computing Research Association’s Distinguished Service Award. In retirement, he developed and taught a course entitled “Cybersecurity for Future Leaders.” He has also served on the advisory board for ACM SIGSAC, on the Board of Directors for the Center for Democracy and Technology (non-profit) and as co-chair of the subcommittee on cybersecurity for the ACM US Technology Policy Council.

Igor Markov

“By joining the CCC Council, I am hoping to help maintain scaling trends in computing hardware and AI applications by coordinating efforts in education, research, and industry.”

Igor Markov is a Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA, whose career has spanned academia, industry research, and engineering. He was a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan and went on to work at Google, Meta, and Synopsys, contributing to information retrieval, AI infrastructure, optimization, and electronic design automation. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA, and is a Fellow of IEEE and a Distinguished Scientist of the ACM.

Nenad Medvidović

“Serving on the CCC Council presents an opportunity to help the computing community respond to and embrace the tremendous changes we are facing.”

Nenad (“Neno”) Medvidović is a Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California. Since 2022, he has served as his Department’s Chair. Neno served a five-year term as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE TSE, Transactions on Software Engineering (2018-2022), his field’s leading journal. He has served as Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) (2015-2018). Additionally, he has served as Chair of the Steering Committees for ICSE, the International Conference on Software Engineering (2013-2015), and FSE, the International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (2015-2017). 

Neno has been the recipient of the Okawa Foundation Research Grant (2005), the IBM Real-Time Innovation Award (2007), the USC Mellon Mentoring Award (2010), the OCEC Distinguished Engineering Merit Award (2018), the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award (2020), the UC Irvine School of Information and Computer Sciences Alumni Hall of Fame Award (2023), and the IEEE Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) Distinguished Service Award (2026). Several of his papers have received Most Influential Paper (“test of time”), Best Paper, and Most Cited Paper awards. Neno is a Fellow of ACM and IEEE.

George Pappas

“What drew me to the CCC Council is its unique role in shaping the long-term research agenda for computing at the national level. As AI systems move from the lab into the physical world, I hope to help the community articulate a vision for trustworthy, safe AI that earns the confidence of both researchers and the public.”

George Pappas is the UPS Foundation Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  He currently serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and as the Director of the Raj and Neera Singh program in Artificial Intelligence. Pappa

s’s research focuses on control systems, robotics, autonomous systems, formal methods, and machine learning for safe and secure cyber-physical systems. He has received numerous awards, including the NSF PECASE, the Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize, the George S. Axelby Award, the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award, and the George H. Heilmeier Faculty Excellence Award. Pappas has mentored more than fifty students and postdocs, now faculty in leading universities worldwide. He is a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, IFAC, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2024. 

David Shmoys

“The pace of change within higher education and computing, and the extent to which technology is driving these changes makes this a moment of both tremendous challenges and opportunities. This means that contributing to leadership for the computing  community is particularly important, and is a mission that I am happy to serve.”

David Shmoys is the Laibe/Acheson Professor and Director of the Center for Data Science for Enterprise & Society at Cornell University. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984 and held postdoctoral positions at MSRI in Berkeley and Harvard University, and a faculty position at MIT before joining the faculty at Cornell University. He was Chair of the Cornell Provost’s “Radical Collaborations” Task Force on Data Science and was co-Chair of the Academic Planning Committee for Cornell Tech. 

His research has focused on the design and analysis of efficient algorithms for discrete optimization problems, with applications including scheduling, inventory theory, computational biology, computational sustainability, and data-driven decision-making in the sharing economy. Shmoys is a Fellow of the ACM, SIAM, INFORMS, and AAAS. His book (co-authored with David Williamson), The Design of Approximation Algorithms, was awarded the 2013 INFORMS Lanchester Prize and his work on bike-sharing (joint with Daniel Freund, Shane Henderson, and Eoin O’Mahony) was awarded the 2018 INFORMS Wagner Prize.

New Executive Committee Members

Please also welcome our new members of the CCC Council Executive Committee, chosen from current CCC Council Members. We look forward to their leadership!

David Jensen, Vice Chair 

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Kevin Butler, Executive Committee Member

University of Florida

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more announcements like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

Randal Burns, Johns Hopkins University

Randal joined the council in 2022 and chaired the Beyond Code: Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems at Scale workshop, and is now the driving force behind the writing of the workshop report. He also participated in and assisted in the report development for the Systems and Applications Challenges for the Emerging Bazaar of Accelerators workshop. Beyond his involvement with visioning initiatives, Randal lent his expertise to two CCC responses to federal Requests for Information (RFIs): the response on the CHIPS and Science Act Section 10343, Research Ethics, and the November 2022 response on Manufacturing USA Semiconductor Institutes.

William (Bill) Regli, University of Maryland

Bill joined the council in 2021. As co-chair of the Grand Challenges in Computing Task Force, he ran three roundtables, and as a member of the AI Research Ecosystem Task Force he is helping organize its workshop. He co-authored the CCC Envisioning Possible Futures for AI Research white paper and co-led The Imperative for Grand Challenges in Computing white paper. Bill contributed to two RFI responses — on the AI Action Plan and on Defense Industrial Base Adoption of AI for Defense Applications — joined four Envisioning Possible Futures 

for AI Research roundtables, and took part in a Best Practices for Interdisciplinary Research roundtable. He was also a familiar face at CCC events, attending the 2025 Computing Futures Symposium and 2025 CIFellows Symposium, as well as the 2018 Early Career Researchers Symposium.

Adam Wierman, California Institute of Technology

Adam joined the council in 2023 and has been at the heart of CCC’s sustainability work, both through past Task Force involvement and as a current organizer of the Full Stack Sustainability: From Silicon to Software workshop. He co-authored CCC’s Envisioning Possible Futures for AI Research white paper and contributed to two RFI responses: one on DOE’s responsibilities for the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of AI, and another on the 2025 National AI R&D Strategic Plan. Adam also served on the CCC Council Nominations Committee for 2025–26 to help shape the Council’s future.

A Heartfelt Thank You

Randal, Bill, and Adam’s work has advanced computing research visions and sharpened our responses to pressing national questions. We extend our deepest thanks to all three for their many contributions, and for the lasting value they leave for CCC and the computing research community at large.

Please stay tuned as we welcome the new Council Members joining CCC on July 1!

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more announcements like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.

That’s the premise behind the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC’s) session during the CRA Summit at Mystic Lake Center. On Thursday, July 23rd, members of the CCC Council Executive Committee will host Yes, And: Computing Visioning Improv, a session that trades a polished panel presentation for spontaneous, crowdsourced ideas. The session aims to bring researchers from across various fields together to do some off-the-cuff visioning, imagining in unusual ways what the field could be capable of long-term.

A New Computing Card Game

The format is built around a card game CCC has developed specifically for this kind of creative brainstorming. In small teams, participants will draw from two decks: one featuring computing substrates like quantum computing or biological computing, and one featuring application domains ripe for transformation, from massive undertakings like agriculture to something as mundane as email. The challenge is to combine whatever cards you draw and pitch a compelling vision for how that substrate could address a real problem in the application.

The crowd serves as both audience and judge, evaluating whether each idea is bold enough, worthy of investment, and pointed at the challenges that matter most. And everyone attending is encouraged to participate, not just watch.

Join the CCC Session

This session is about more than just generating interesting — or wacky — ideas. CCC aims to encourage the kind of visionary thinking that doesn’t always fit neatly into a grant proposal, and to create space for researchers across disciplines to actually talk to each other. The card game format is deliberately designed to produce unlikely combinations because those collisions tend to be where we’re most challenged to think out-of-the-box. In this way, the visioning happening during Yes And: Computing Visioning Improv is a direct reflection of CCC’s mission to shape the future of computing research. All CRA Summit attendees are welcome, whether as a participant or an observer.

Read more about the CRA Summit here.

Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.