[Air-L] NSF Convergence Accelerator Phases I and II for the 2021 Cohort

[Stuart Shulman]

I am finalizing a Letter of Intent due May 5 to be a part of the "NSF
Convergence Accelerator Phases I and II for the 2021 Cohort" under the
"Trust and Authenticity in Communication Systems" track. The goal of the
program is to develop prototypes of "novel research platforms" that
integrate tools, techniques, and educational outcomes "engendering trust
and authenticity in communication systems." This proposal will be
industry-led under the Broad Agency Announcement described here:

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/0106e498c00246379415ed50c74e5b9a/view

The Program Solicitation calls for an interdisciplinary team and I am
currently recruiting up to four CO-PIs and up to four Senior Personnel to
be a part of the proposal. If awarded, Phase I is $750,000 for Y1 and a
total of $5,000,000 for Y2 and Y3. I will be taking meetings the remainder
of the week with potential collaborators on this project. I was a part of
the NSF workshop that led to this specific solicitation and I have a set of
long percolating ideas related to the gamification of human annotation that
will underpin the proposal, however the breadth and scope of "Convergence"
projects means that the deliverables (ex., working prototypes) need to be
able to cut across disciplines, tools, and all communication domains,
including health, climate, news, and other areas where trustworthy and
authentic information may be, for lack of a better expression, "all in a
muddle" on the Internet.

I have previously been through the cycle of funding from NSF (2000-2008)
working with computer science, statistics, sociology and political science
researchers. The deliverable was DiscoverText, now a 10+ year old
annotation science platform that people seem to think is a glorified Tweet
collector. In fact, the kernel of that platform was a scientific
measurement instrument (inter-rater reliability in crowd source annotation)
and a novel adjudication methodology (determining what the gold standard is
for recorded observations as well observers themselves). In this new
project, we are seeking to build a new team that can move annotation
science into the forefront of convergence research and education. If this
sounds like something that might be in your wheelhouse, please send me your
CV and then let's have a 15-minute conversation:

https://calendly.com/discovertext

Thanks,
~Stu