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Warren R. DeVries
Division Director

Information-Based Technologies (IT)

For decades, information-based technologies (IT) have provided promising new capabilities for enhancing the quality of business and commerce, industrial processes, scientific and engineering analysis, education, work life, healthcare, and personal endeavors. Small businesses play a major role in generating innovations and fulfilling the IT promise by quickly reacting in the current highly competitive and changing enconomy. Through the NSF SBIR/STTR program, a company can take its concepts through feasibility testing and prototyping in preparation for entering the marketplace.

The IT topic solicits proposals to develop the innovations necessary to support the Nation’s information, knowledge, and computational needs in the first decade of the 21st century. The emphasis of the IT topic is on the support of high-risk innovation in products, services, or processes that have the potential for a large payoff to industry, business, or society. Proposals must identify the users and markets of the proposed innovation and its potential for commercialization.

Information technology can be conceptualized in the form of a stack. Each layer of the stack is built upon the layers below and supports the layers above. The National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR Program conceptualizes a five-layer stack. At the same time, the SBIR/STTR Program also recognizes the unique aspects of applications that support education, which is reflected in the inclusion of a structure parallel to the rest of the stack labeled Education Applications. From the top down, the five layers include the following:

A. Organizations and Processes
B. Human Computer Interaction
C. Applications
D. Platforms
E. Infrastructure
F. Education Applications

Proposals must address one of the subtopics that are outlined below. Proposals that are not responsive to the subtopics outlined below will be returned without review. When submitting a proposal to the IT Topic, code the subtopics to the lowest level possible, e.g., F.1.b., for proposals in the area of “Education Applications/Applications in Support of Teaching/Content authoring systems”. In addition, use the lowest level category as the first item in the key words/phrases portion of the Project Summary of your proposal.

A. Organizations and Processes
The pace of modern business activity has increased considerably within the past few years as a result of intense competitive pressure and globalization. Businesses large and small, for-profit and non-profit must respond to customer needs, manage internal activities, and adapt to competitive market pressures much more rapidly than at any other period in history. Businesses that effectively and efficiently combine computing, communication, and business process advances become leaders in their respective markets. They are dependent, in turn, on scientific and engineering advancements to become and remain successful.

The need for measurable efficiency and responsiveness has created exciting opportunities for commercial applications in the following areas:

1. Enabling Virtual Enterprises or Enterprises that Exist on the Web

a. Manufacturing Enterprises
b. Service Enterprises
c. Collaborative Enterprises
d. Micropayment/Cyberpayment

2. Enabling E-Communities: E-communities use Web technologies to provide geographically distributed groups with a sense of community providing them with a shared space in the cyberspace.

3. Security/Privacy: Organizations need established processes to define security and privacy policies across departmental boundaries within the organization. Issues include defining the tools and rules for reconciling conflicting privacy/security policies (http://www.eng.nsf.gov/sbirspecs/Security.htm ).

4. Management of Knowledge-Intensive Dynamic Organizations: Challenges include such issues as identifying bottlenecks, productivity parameters, and performance criteria.

a. Business process improvement
b. Manufacturing process control and modeling systems
c. Customer feedback and relationship management systems
d. Integration of (a), (b), and (c) into a business cyber-infrastructure
e. Integration of business cyberinfrastructures into an industry-wide cyber-ecosystem
f. Computers and network-enhanced collaboration

5. Knowledge Discovery in Decision Making: Management of modern organizations has become data intensive. Data mining tools are needed to effectively extract and discover the knowledge needed for decision support.

6. Intelligent Process Control: The growing network infrastructure leads to tightly coupled systems that need to be controlled with data-driven controllers.

B. Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
A challenge in HCI is to make people more productive by augmenting their capabilities through information devices and through interfaces, which provide the mediation environment for these gains. Human-computer interaction covers the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use, specifically interaction among one or more humans and one or more computational machines. It also deals with the joint performance of tasks by humans and machines.

1. Visualization Tools for Data Display

a. Massive datasets
b. High dimensionality

2. Virtual/Augmented Reality for Immersive Environments

3. Representation and Visualization of Knowledge and Models

4. Desktop Information and Attention Management Tools

5. Universal Access: Displays, devices, or software for those with physical or cognitive disabilities and functional limitations (enabling educational and/or workplace activities or independent lifestyles)

6. Human Language and Communication

a. Natural Language Processing
b. Information Retrieval from text and/or multimedia
c. Extracting patterns rules and knowledge from text and spoken language
d. Multilingual Natural Language Processing and speech
e. Speech recognition and dialog management
f. Speech synthesis and text to speech
g. Voice authentication, speaker identification and biometrics

7. Multimodal I/O (e.g., voice, keyboard, gesture, physiological sensors)

8. Ubiquitous Computing

a. Interfaces
b. Device integration
c. 24/7 available (including wearable devices)

C. Applications
Innovative projects dealing with communications, knowledge and model discovery, information and knowledge management, networking, science, mathematics and engineering are sought. These include networks, protocols, architectures and systems. Applications that will be supported under this solicitation are as follows:

1. Mobile Applications

2. Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) Applications

3. Peer To Peer (P2P) Applications

4. Digital Rights Management Support

5. Data Mining and Management

a. Real-time
b. Temporal/Historical

6. Intelligent/Semantic Web

a. Security and privacy enhancements
b. Programmatic interfaces and Web services enhancement
c. Personalization: Context-aware systems
d. Web mining technology tools that return coherent blocks of data from the Web

7. Digital Arts

a. 3D computing imaging and animation
b. Digital photo and video
c. Web design
d. Motion design
e. Scenario X

8. Software Engineering

9. Simulation and Modeling: Involving design, understanding, application and forecasting in any of the engineering and science disciplines

D. Platforms
Innovative projects are sought that either improve existing systems or develop new systems and architectures that would be of wide interest across many market segments. The goal is to significantly improve the capability of devices to perform their intended tasks or to enable entirely new classes of functionality. The subtopics that will be supported under this solicitation are as follows:

1. Operating Systems for Ubiquitous Sensors and Devices

a. Interoperability of disparate elements
b. Reliability enhancements
c. Power management enhancements

2. Secure, Scalable Architectures for Smart Buildings

3. Digital Preservation

a. Automated conversion between media
b. Media-independent formats

4. Advanced Signal Processing Algorithms Including Stochastic Methods for New Computational Approaches

5. Parallel & Distributed Platforms

a. Algorithms
b. Grid-aware architectures

6. Quantum Computing

a. Algorithms
b. Programming languages
c. Operating systems
d. Cryptography

E. Infrastructure
Innovative projects that enhance and extend the backbone upon which further IT innovations can be built are sought. These include networks, protocols, architectures and systems. The subtopics that will be supported are as follows:

1. Next Generation IP Protocol Infrastructure (IPv6)

a. Transition technologies
b. Mobile IPv6
c. Security systems
d. Plug and play home and small office networking system
e. QoS and low-latency network applications
f. Tools for IPv6 network planning and management

2. Auto-Configuring End-User Networks for Non-IPv6

3. Wireless Communications

a. Mobile communications
b. Networking protocol
c. Security-enhancing protocols and architectures
d. Software radios

4. Real-Time Networking Protocols and Systems for Streaming Media

5. Low-Cost High-Capacity Backup/Archival Storage Systems for Small Enterprises

a. Removable storage
b. Secure storage
c. Network-enabled storage

6. Wireline and Wireless Network Security

a. Authentication and accountable anonymity
b. Encryption
c. Enhancing Public-Key Infrastructure – PKI
d. Intrusion hardening

7. Distributed Sensor Networks

a. Self-organizing networks
b. Fault-tolerant networks

8. Ad-Hoc Networking to Empower First Responders

9. High-Performance Coding and Compression

10. Embedded Systems

a. Real-time operating systems
b. Hardware optimized programming languages
c. Device drivers

F. Education Applications
Emerging technologies should play an important role in enhancing student learning, increasing problem-solving capability, and participation in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. IT can contribute to every educational level, from pre-kindergarten through higher and continuing education. Emphasis is on the development of innovative technologies that promise to (1) improve the understanding and learning of scientific and technical principles as well as increase problem-solving capability; (2) facilitate interactive learning and collaborative learning; (3) broaden access to high-quality science and technology education; and (4) promote equal access for those with disabilities (for the latter, see subtopic, B.5 (Human/Computer Interactions) (Universal Access), above).

Knowing the history of education failures in this area, it is important to be explicit about how designated staff and/or consultants will determine in an ongoing way whether a project’s goals are being met and whether the proposed technology is likely to achieve acceptance by the education community. It is also important to address issues such as portability, scalability, compliance with consistent standards for K-12, pedagogical techniques, developmentally appropriate content and instructional strategies, educational equity, metrics for success, and involvement of educators.

Under this subtopic, proposers will need to address the factors unique to the education market and case histories of other similar education ventures. So in addition to demonstrating knowledge of content, applicable pedagogical principles, and the technology they propose to use; they must also show awareness of the business issues as they apply in the education arena, issues such as marketing, finance, distribution channels, IP, and acceptance of the proffered technology.

1. Applications in Support of Teaching

a. Modeling and simulations
b. Content authoring systems
c. Lesson management systems

2. Applications in Support of Learning

a. Modeling and simulations
b. Remote manipulated experimentation
c. Content authoring systems
d. Convergent platforms
e. Intelligent tutoring systems

3. Educational Administration Software

a. Student data tracking
b. Classroom management
c. Decision management support

4. Assessment Technology

5. Handheld and Other Small Devices or Platforms

6. Physical Instrumentation for Education

7. Distance/Distributed Education

a. Course Management Systems (CMS)
b. Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Please direct inquires for the following subtopics under this topic to the specific SBIR/STTR Program Manager listed below:

Juan E. Figueroa (jfiguero@nsf.gov) 703-292-7054
Subtopic A. Organizations and processes
Subtopic C. Applications

Sara B. Nerlove (snerlove@nsf.gov) 703-292-7077
Subtopic B. Human Computer Interaction
Subtopic F. Education Applications

Errol B. Arkilic (earkilic@nsf.gov) 703-292-8095
Subtopic D. Platforms
Subtopic E. Infrastructure

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Last updated:
20-Feb-2004