This is the initial funding of a project submitted by the Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications of the National Research Council (NRC). The CSTB organizes a multi-stage convening activity for academia, business, and industry to consider the deployment of technologies and services expected for the near- term national information infrastructure (NII), their relationships to key applications which are representative of those under the NII umbrella, and their anticipated degree of interoperability. Activities under this project include an initial workshop to structure the kinds of information on which common understanding is desired, a solicitation of white papers to explore industry, technology, and applications perspectives based on the outcome of the initial workshop, convening of a larger forum to air and discuss perspectives presented in the white papers, and a synthesis of the insights from all these activities and from related reports generated by others into a succinct summary to inform the development of the initial phase of the NII roadmap development.
