Carnegie Mellon, Industry Leaders Join To Protect U.S. Computing Infrastructure

Compiled ByDeborah Austin The Sustainable Computing Consortium (SCC) -- a collaborative initiative to improve the reliability of U.S. information-technology systems -- has been formed by Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and a coalition of global businesses, software developers and federal agencies. The SCC's purposes:

Foster standards and methodologies development to reduce software defects.

Quantify and reduce software flaws' risks to the nation's computing infrastructure.

Bring together industry and public policy leaders to address sustainable-computing issues.

Conduct independent research, provide measurement and design tools to quantify and improve software dependability and security. Among the founding members are Alcoa Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Merck and Co. Inc., Microsoft Corp., NASA, Oracle Corp. and Pfizer Inc. The SCC will leverage nearly $30 million in existing research grants and member commitments -- including an initial seed grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic institution, and the Software Industry Center, a Carnegie Mellon-based research center.