Computer Science in the 21st Century

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Computer Science in the 21st Century
Vipin Kumar University of Minnesota kumar_at_cs.umn
.edu www.cs.umn.edu/kumar
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Exponential Growth in Computing Power

• Since humble beginning 6 decades ago, computers
  have come of age.

Teraflops computers are common and Petaflops
scale computing has arrived
ENIACS 1945, 10KHz, 5k additions/sec, 365
Mults/sec
Multi-Giga Hz, multi-Gigabyte, multi-core CPUs
are Commodity
Internet is central to our lives.
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Era of Computing

• Computational simulation is the 3rd pillar of
  science
• theory, experimental computation and simulation.
• Biology is increasingly becoming an information
  science.

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Informatics is Central to Most Disciplines
Informatics studies the structure, algorithms,
behavior, and interactions of natural and
artificial systems that store, process, access
and communicate information.

• Social Informatics
• Ecoinformatics
• Geoinformatics
• Chemo Informatics
• Business Informatics
• Health Informatics

• Astroinformatics
• Neuroinformatics
• Quantum Informatics
• Evolutionary Informatics
• Veterinary Informatics
• Organizational Informatics
• Pharmacy Informatics

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics
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Great Opportunities to Solve Societys Major
Problems
Predicting the impact of climate change
Improving health care and reducing costs
Reducing hunger and poverty by increasing
agriculture production
Finding alternative/ green energy sources
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Technology driven to Application driven
Transition

• Focus away from simply improving technology to
  solving real problems

Credit PaulStamatiou.com
Smart Cars
Kindly donated by Stewart Johnston
Credit MO Dept. of Transportation
Smart Buildings
Smart Bridges sensors everywhere
Source Cyber-Physical Systems Research
Challenges Jeannette M. Wing, NSF
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Compute centric to Data Centric
Transition
Data Intensive
Compute Intensive
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Our graduates are in high demand
Challenges and Opportunities
Source Merrick Furst (Georgia Tech)
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Attracting students in Computer Science
Challenges
http//www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may05/vegso
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Gender Imbalance
Challenges
http//www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may05/vegso
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Gender Imbalance
Challenges
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The Problem is Worse for Minorities
Challenges
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Interdisciplinary Research
Challenges

• How to promote interdisciplinary research
  without diluting the core of computer science.

Source http//www.cra.org/reports/computing/