The event, hosted by MIT, brought together dozens of scientists to deliberate over two days
August 11, 2022 —Researchers from academia, industry, and government sectors convened to identify priorities for engineering research to address a future world with an unhackable infrastructure. The visioning session was hosted by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program on the campus of MIT in Boston and was convened by the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA), a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded initiative.
The ERVA visioning session was structured to spur creative, bold thinking and gather broad perspectives from dozens of researchers who specialize in this area. A thematic task force co-chaired by Saurabh Amin, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and leader of MIT’s Resilient Infrastructure Networks Laboratory, and David Ott, VMware senior researcher, structured the visioning over two days to identify specific areas that are nascent or require additional exploration with the potential for the greatest return on investment.
ERVA visioning events provide a unique opportunity for selected participants to advance the goal of catalyzing the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research that benefits society. The researchers considered gaps in today's security technologies and identified new ideas and visions that could steer future research toward areas of much-needed innovation in computer security as we know it—put simply, envisioning what tomorrow's "unhackable infrastructure" could look like with non-incremental advances in security R&D and engineering.
The theme is critical to ensure the nation’s security and to protect the systems and infrastructure of tomorrow, which will be under constant attack by increasingly sophisticated adversaries who will leverage, among other things, new generations of software virus technology and techniques borrowed from artificial intelligence. Finding more effective and advanced ways to prepare for and respond to attacks is critical to both current and future societal-scale infrastructure systems and services.
Event participants were identified and invited based on their research and expertise and represent scientists across academic disciplines, geographic location, organization sector and type, gender, race/ethnicity, and career stage. ERVA was established to provide the engineering community with a process for identifying bold and societally impactful engineering research directions that will place the U.S. in a leading position to realize a better future for all. It is an engaged, inclusive, multilayered partnership, providing a truly diverse array of voices with the opportunity to impact national research priorities.
The results of the proceedings will be distilled and disseminated via a thematic report that will help set priorities for the future of engineering. The report will include high-value findings that will identify less-explored, basic and use-inspired lines of research ripe for the engineering community to pursue to enable a future with an Unhackable infrastructure.
Learn more about this visioning event and the work of the thematic task force, and sign up to receive updates and the results report.
About ERVA
The Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) is a neutral convener that helps define future engineering research directions. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering, ERVA is a diverse, inclusive and engaged partnership that enables an array of voices to impact national research priorities. The five-year initiative convenes, catalyzes and enables the engineering community to identify nascent opportunities and priorities for engineering-led innovative, high-impact, cross-domain research that addresses national, global and societal needs. Learn more at www.ERVAcommunity.org.
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