2013 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference Plenary Panel: “Microsoft-Sponsored Fireside Chat about Future Technologies” Moderator: Valerie Taylor, Texas A&M;

1. November 17, 2013
Tapia Conference: Fireside Chat Slides
John Towns
PI and Project Director, XSEDE
Director, Collaborative Cyberinfrastructure Programs, NCSA
jtowns@ncsa.illinois.edu

2. XSEDE Mission
The eXtreme Science and Engineering
Discovery Environment (XSEDE):
enhances the productivity of scientists and
engineers by providing them with new and
innovative capabilities
and thus
facilitates scientific discovery while enabling
transformational science/engineering and
innovative educational programs
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3. XSEDE’s Objectives
• Understand the cyberinfrastructure requirements
of the science and engineering research and
education community
• Create a cyberinfrastructure ecosystem to
facilitate improved researcher productivity
• Provide a unique user friendly interface to the
resources and services accessible via XSEDE
• Maximize researcher productivity
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4. Major Future Technologies – how will these be used
(a distributed cyberinfrastructure context)
• New environments for science and engineering research
and education
– beyond Science Gateways/application portals/etc.
– oriented toward end user
– customized/configurable for specific use
Creating the capability to very simply create personalized environments for conducting
the end-to-end set of processes in accomplishing research and education goals.
• New interfaces for interaction with these environments
– driven by what is familiar to the current teenager
• immediate access to information—anytime, anywhere
• multiple interaction modes and devices
– cell phones, tablets, laptops
– keyboards, swiping, voice recognition
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5. A Few Implications
• Back to the Future – everything is in the “cloud”
– “cloud” will be redefined several times
• think client-server, VT100 terminals, thin clients and all the other names these
fundamentally similar things have been called
– ..but will the pendulum swing again?
• Resurgence in comfort with all things being elsewhere (i.e. in the
“cloud”)
– expectations of availability of all things anywhere at anytime will be
very high!
– …and this might again driving the pendulum!
• End user devices driven by the need to display and interact
– we already see this emerging more and more extensively
• PCs are already seen as passing
• These abstractions make life easier for so many BUT, reduce
dramatically those that know how the black boxes work
– [John’s MatLab story…]
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6. Some Key Issues in Realizing Future
Technologies
•
“Old Guard” problem: pros and cons
– those that currently manage these environments
• have a good handle on what works and what does not work
• understand the current technology very well
• know how to develop new capabilities that work
– BUT, they
• don’t understand their kids and the mentality associated with how they interact with one
another and the digital world
• struggle to effectively use these new interaction modalities; their kids consider them
second nature
•
“IKEA syndrome” (at least one version)
– one inherently tends to see greater value in something in which they have
invested themselves than others will
– THUS, those that have created the current environments perhaps see greater
value in them that those that are trying to use them
•
We are likely to lack those that can create anything not possible to
assemble from the abstractions available
– need people who know how the black boxes work and can modify them or
create new black boxes for others
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7. What Skills Will be Needed?
• Black Box Builders
– those that can build the tools used by others to create their own
environments
– we need developers: distributed systems, novel user interfaces, strong
software engineering
• Infrastructure Creators
– those that can develop vision and execute it to create the
infrastructure to support these personalized environments
– we need leaders: vision development, project leadership, influencing
the powers that be…
– we need middle management: understanding of technology and how
to apply it, executing projects, managing humans
– we need social engineers: understand the cultural contexts of the
diverse set of participants, develop processes cognizant of them,
develop management structures and practices
• These are not mutually exclusive!!
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