Onward and Upward

This issue of CISE contains several articles on the general topic of “Computational Challenges for the 21st Century.” We plan to have a number of articles and essays on this subject throughout the year. In part, we’re building on the themes set in last year’s list of the “Top 10 Algorithms,” but we’re attempting to address some broader issues too. Some of the more scientific of these include identifying the barriers to achieving even more results through computation and examining whether we’re missing any new opportunities or ideas offered by computation. We also want to look at some social and economic issues, such as how US government policies related to computation will continue to evolve and if high‐speed communication and computation offer pure benefits with no drawbacks?