This grant funds the Second Engineering Conference, the second conference in a projected series for designers and experimenters of a network science and engineering infrastructure. The conference will be held over two days with a "newcomers" session prior to the start of the conference. The conference will consist of a mix of plenary sessions with invited speakers and working group meetings. The particular goals of this second conference are:
1. To build on the sense of community that developed at the First Engineering Conference held at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2007; 2. Prepare the Working Groups for a more aggressive pace of effort; and 3. Reconcile future visions with concrete engineering challenges.
This conference and all subsequent conferences in this series are critical to the design of infrastructure for network science and engineering. If such an infrastructure is developed in the future, new kinds of network science and engineering research will be enabled. Experiments that cannot be carried out on today's testbeds promise to reveal new scientific insights and understanding of network behavior, performance, design, security, and economics, for example. In addition, new products will result as well as new opportunities for industry. These conferences provide a place where industry, researchers, students, international participants and agency program directors can discuss future visions and how to most effectively manage the risks inherent in such an endeavor. The funding from this grant will allow for increased diversity at the Second Conference -- both in attendees and speakers -- and to educate new attendees during a "newcomers" session.
