INDUSTRY

A three-day symposium on the importance of creative practices to the sciences and technology—called Beyond "Beyond Productivity"—will be held April 15-17 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The symposium is in part a response to a published National Research Council Report, "Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, And Creativity." The report argues that information technology is forming a powerful alliance with creative practices in the arts and design to establish an exciting new domain. During the symposium, leaders in the arts, technology, sciences, and humanities from across the University of Illinois campus will meet with guests from across the country to discuss the possibilities and opportunities for connecting the humanities, the fine and applied arts, science and technology. The kick-off session of the symposium at 7 p.m. on April 15 in 1005 Beckman Institute is open to the public. It will feature a discussion of "Beyond Productivity" by several of the report's co-authors, including Michael Century, chair of the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Roger Dannenberg, associate research professor in the School of Computer Science and School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. The symposium is sponsored by the University's Seedbed Initiative for Transdomain Creativity, which fosters cross-campus efforts to join the arts with technology, science, and the humanities. The Seedbed Initiative is co-directed by Mike Ross, director of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and Guy Garnett, a professor in the School of Music. Campus units participating in Seedbed and the Beyond "Beyond Productivity" symposium include the Beckman Institute Advanced Science and Technology, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a national high-performance computing center that develops and deploys cutting-edge computing, networking and information technologies. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.