At its virtual General Assembly held in September, the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) adopted a new IFIP Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The code was adapted from ACM's Code of Ethics, which itself had been through consultation and development with members of IFIP, IEEE and other national and international bodies and companies. "As an international member of IFIP, ACM endorses the proposed IFIP Code of Ethics as a common international standard for computing and the profession," said ACM CEO Vicki Hanson. Read the IFIP news release.

ACM's Practitioner Board has created ACM ByteCast, a new podcast series in which hosts Rashmi Mohan and Jessica Bell interview researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests will share their experiences, the lessons they’ve learned, and their own visions for the future of computing.

Listen to the latest episode featuring Shwetak Patel, 2018 ACM Prize in Computing recipient and 2011 MacArthur Fellow, on the ACM Learning Center website, and subscribe to the series wherever you get your podcasts.

The Computing Research Association recently released the first of more than a dozen planned white papers exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called "Quadrennial Papers," they attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community. The papers cover five thematic areas: Core Computer Science, Broad Computing, Socio-Technical Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity and Education.

The ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing recognizes talented high school students intending to continue their higher education in computer science or technology. The program seeks to promote and encourage the field of computer science and empower young and aspiring learners to pursue computing challenges outside of the traditional classroom environment. Applications for the 2020-2021 prize are open now through January 18, 2021.

ACM Selects are themed shortlists curated by subject matter experts for both serious and emerging computing professionals, with the goal of providing new ways to discover relevant resources, either through ACM or authenticated by ACM-affiliated specialists. The latest Selects cover Getting Started with Software Engineering Best Practices; Understanding Machine Learning; and People in Computing #1.

Koji Yatani is an Associate Professor and 2017 UTokyo Excellent Young Researcher at the University of Tokyo, where he leads the Interactive Intelligent Systems Laboratory (IIS Lab). Yatani was one of the founding editors of Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (PACM IMWUT). His volunteer roles also include serving as the Vice Chair of the ACM Japan SIGCHI Chapter and the Steering Committee Chair for the annual ACM UbiComp conference. His honors include receiving the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ)/ACM Award for Early Career Contributions to Global Research.

The ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering is a forum for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, experiences, and challenges in SE. Scheduled keynote speakers are Pernille Bjørn (University of Copenhagen) on "ATARI Women: Retro Gaming and the Women Pioneers behind Them" and Mira Lane (Microsoft) on "Real-world Approaches to Human-computer Collaboration."

Meena Mahajan is a Professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India. She has served as member and Past Chair of the Steering Committee of the IARCS Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science; as Paper Chair for the Computational Complexity Conference; as a member of the Editorial Board of the Leibniz International Proceedings in informatics, as and an editor of Logical Methods in Computer Science. Mahajan is also an ACM India Eminent Speaker.

The Computing Research Association (CRA) conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. One surveyed computer science faculty members about their experiences transitioning from teaching in person to teaching online as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The other surveyed department chairs, asking them about the impact of COVID-19 on their faculty, department operations, student job searches, and budgets, and their concerns going into fall 2020.

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee filed a friend of the court brief with the US Supreme Court in the landmark case of Van Buren v. United States—the first time it has reviewed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 law that was originally intended to punish hacking. USTPC notes that the questions posed in this case have broad implications for data and computing scientists, as well as other professionals who use the internet and computing technology, particularly to access information posted online.

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee has called for “an immediate suspension of the current and future private and governmental use of facial recognition (FR) technologies in all circumstances known or reasonably foreseeable to be prejudicial to established human and legal rights” in its “Statement on Principles and Prerequisites for the Development, Evaluation and Use of Unbiased Facial Recognition Technologies.”

ACM’s US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) joined many of the nation’s leading experts in cybersecurity, computing, and science in calling on all governors and state election directors to refrain from using any form of internet voting or voting app system in the 2020 elections. The joint open letter includes a detailed analysis prepared by the AAAS Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues which clearly demonstrates that internet voting is not a secure solution for voting in the US.

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