The National Science Foundation (NSF) leads federal partners to accelerate the development of transformational, AI-powered innovation, workforce development, and advanced and scalable computing resources.

New funding opportunities anticipate approximately $200 million in long-term investments to advance AI research and create national nexus points for universities, federal agencies, industries, and nonprofits over the next six years. It will accelerate the development of transformational, AI-powered innovation by allowing researchers to focus on larger-scale, longer-term research.

The program, led by NSF in partnership with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, has both planning and institute tracks. The planning track will support grants for up to two years and $500,000 to enable teams to develop collaborative plans and capacity for entire institute operations. The institute track will keep cooperative agreements of $16 million to $20 million for four to five years (up to $4 million per year) to create AI Research Institutes in an initial set of high-priority areas:

• Trustworthy AI
• Foundations of Machine Learning
• AI-Driven Innovation in Agriculture and the Food System
• AI-Augmented Learning
• AI for Accelerating Molecular Synthesis and Manufacturing
• AI for Discovery in Physics
• The AI Research Institutes program will support advancing multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder research on larger-scale, longer-time-horizon challenges in AI research than are supported in typical research grants.

NSF’s ability to bring together a vast range of scientific disciplines — including computer and information science and engineering, cognitive science and psychology, economics and game theory, engineering and control theory, ethics, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, and more — uniquely positions NSF to lead the nation in addressing critical research challenges.
This year, NSF joined other federal agency partners in announcing the release of the 2019 Update to the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development (R) Strategic Plan. Also, Advances in AI are core to many of the “10 Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments,” key among these being Harnessing the Data Revolution and the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier.
Grant proposals for the National AI Research Institutes program are due to NSF no later than January 28, 2020, for Institute proposals and January 30, 2020, for planning grant proposals.

The U.S. National Science Foundation propels the nation forward by advancing fundamental research in science and engineering. NSF supports research and people by providing facilities, instruments, and funding to support their ingenuity and sustain the U.S. as a global leader in research and innovation. With the fiscal year 2020 budget of $8.3 billion, NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities, and institutions. NSF receives more than 40,000 competitive proposals each year and makes about 11,000 new awards. Those awards include support for cooperative research with industry, Arctic and Antarctic research and operations, and U.S. participation in international scientific efforts.

NSF Director France Córdova said: “Advances in AI are progressing rapidly and demonstrating the potential to transform our lives. This landmark investment will further AI research and workforce development, allowing us to accelerate the development of transformational technologies and catalyze mature markets.”

Michael Kratsios, Chief Technology Officer of the United States, said: “The National Science Foundation is at the cutting edge in this Administration’s efforts to prioritize AI research and development. These institutes will advance our national strategy for U.S. leadership in AI, leverage important multisector R & D partnerships, and support groundbreaking AI innovation for the American people’s benefit.”

NSF Acting Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering Erwin Gianchandani said: “These institutes will accelerate the transition of AI innovations into many economic sectors while also nurturing and growing the next generation of AI researchers and practitioners. This long-term, substantive, and highly visible investment in AI research and workforce development will realize the potential of AI and enable the U.S. to maintain global leadership.”News Release 19-021 Public Affairs, NSF, (703) 292-7090, email:media@nsf.gov Date: October 8, 2019

What are the Benefits Of Having a Website?

It is common knowledge that the Internet greatly serves millions of users globally. This is possible mainly because of the countless websites that help provide information, advertising services, exposure to a global audience, and various other options. All of this ultimately leads to a more excellent database of customers, better potential for growth and additional lesser-known benefits. Though having your website is a perfect advertising strategy, it does not eliminate the need for advertising in other media. Owning a website should be considered an integral part of advertising on the ‘www.’

Owning a website makes any individual or business look more professional. This can create a better first impression and show you are a significant businessperson.

You find Global Audience on a website. We all know how huge the Internet is; with the right content and good search engine optimisation, you can rank your website higher and get more customers worldwide.

A website provides Better Communication: For a business that has others reporting to you, using your website, you can communicate with your employees, suppliers, etc.; this way, you can have 24/7 communication or work delegation. Anyone who has seen the updates once posted without waiting for specific instructions related to them and their work.

Self-Promoting: As your business has grown, you considered it unnecessary to represent affiliates, so you would like to end it; this way, the ranking achieved over time would be of no value. However, if you have your website, all that the Webmaster is required to do is change the content on the site, remove the affiliate link and add a new one. This way, you maintain an online presence, which helps make the business boom.

Owning your website puts your business on the global map; this way, it is omnipresent and mobile since it has worldwide access.

Businesses can have clients globally, so owning a website can allow you to showcase your work to potential clients. The clients can be located anywhere in the world and yet be able to see your work anytime; all you have to do is refer them to your website.

What more would a business want than a good haul of customers? Owning a website gives you that edge. This is because you can do business 24/7, 365 days a year and in case a customer needs to acquire information about you and your business, your website helps tremendously.

According to current statistics, 125,000 new Internet Access Accounts are established monthly in the United States alone. So, if all the tips and methods are correctly followed, your business can boom at a high percentage without any advertising in any media.

Unique opportunities for businesses

There are several unique opportunities for businesses: Instant Access to Information About Your Company’s Goods and Services, Better Customer Feedback through response forms, online discussions, and focus groups, a Business that is highly adaptable to your customer’s needs, and Services that are impossible with traditional businesses, such as customer reviews of products and services or computer-generated product suggestions based on customer preferences. You can Sell Your Product 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the comfort of the customer’s living room or bedroom.

Need for Business Online

You must ensure you have many things to provide flexibility and security for your online store. Here is an outline of the basics of bringing your business online.
Shopping Cart Software
There are several different solutions that you should consider for your shopping cart software that we will go over here. However, if you need a lot of flexibility, you should think of another solution. My personal favourite is osCommerce. This is an open-source (so it’s free!) shopping cart solution with a big, active community to help you along the way. Your host will need to have PHP and MySQL for osCommerce to function. It is straightforward to run an unmodified version of osCommerce. You download it, upload it to your server, and run the web-based install, or if you have Fantastico, you can automatically install it from there.
Merchant Account
This is a necessity for any e-commerce business because you need to be able to take payments in your store. There are several different ways you can go here. You can use a 3rd party processor or a valid merchant account built into your shopping cart.

If you have a website, you need a web host! For most shopping carts, you will need PHP and MySQL, so make sure that you look for hosts that support the technology that you need.

Instant Domain Alias is an additional web address that lets you access your site several hours after domain name registration. The site is still available at the newly registered domain. Over the next few days, DNS servers all across the Internet will update themselves with your new site name. Once that happens, you will be able to access your site at the domain you have registered.