Schmidt Futures is creating the US$40-million Virtual Institute of Scientific Software to fund the maintenance of researcher-written code.
See whether this sounds familiar: you build a piece of software to solve a research question. But when you move on to the next project, there’s no one to maintain it. As it ages, it becomes obsolete, and the next academic to tackle a similar problem finds themselves having to reinvent the wheel.
The institute will initially fund projects at the University of Cambridge, UK; the University of Washington in Seattle; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. It’s still early days, but several software projects are already lined up for support, Feldman says.
Still, there’s a limit to how far Schmidt’s investment can go. Hiring good engineers in places like Seattle and Cambridge is expensive, because universities are competing against the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta. “It’s tricky,” says Chris Edsall, head of research software engineering at the University of Cambridge’s Research Computing Services. “We can’t unfortunately compete on salary.”Instead, VISS is banking on the lure of the research itself.
Computer scientist Alexander Szalay, who is helping to set up a VISS centre at Johns Hopkins, agrees, noting that very few programs get to a point where enough researchers use and update them to remain useful. “They don’t survive this ‘Valley of Death’,” he says. “The funding stops when they actually develop the software prototype.”
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
U.S. tax committees to question IRS chief over audits of ex-FBI officialsU.S. tax commissioner Charles Rettig will face questions from legislators over how two former FBI officials vilified by former President Donald Trump were targeted for intensive tax audits, lawmakers and the Internal Revenue Service said on Monday.
Read more »
Ex-Formula One Chief Charged With Hiding Nearly Half a Billion DollarsThe former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone faces criminal prosecution for fraud after being accused of hiding almost half a billion dollars worth of overseas assets from the British taxman.
Read more »
Google Dethrones NVIDIA In Latest Artificial Intelligence Benchmarking TestsSenior Analyst, AI & Quantum Computing, Paul Smith-Goodson, dives in as in today's world, many critical business decisions and customer-facing services rely on accurate machine learning insights. Today, he discusses Google's latest A.I. benchmarking test dethroning NVIDIA's.
Read more »
Privacy advocates fear Google will be used to prosecute abortion seekersWhen law enforcement requests it, Google usually hands over location and search data collected through its smartphone apps. Will that now be used against people seeking abortions in some states?
Read more »