Message from Conference General Chair and Program Chair
It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the COM.* Conferences
and Summits 2014; in short form, COM.* 2014, which takes place in Washington
DC, U.S.A. on August 4-6, 2014 as well as the online COM.* Virtual Conference
(COM.* VC).
The COM.* 2014 includes COM.Geo 2014,
5th International Conference
on Computing for Geospatial Research and Application, COM.BigData
2014, The International Summit
on Big Data Computing, and COM.DriverlessCar 2014,
The International Summit on Driverless
Car Computing.
The COM.* 2014 is an exclusive cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary event. COM.* starts with a focus on COM.Geo 5 years ago. COM.Geo has been playing a guiding role in geospatial computing since 2010. This year, it has expanded to COM.BigData, COM.DriverlessCar, COM.Geo, and online VC. Innovative research and technologies are the brightest spotlights at the event. There are more innovative programs and world-wide people to attend the event physically or virtually. Besides government agencies and top industries, many other institutions not only show their latest technologies but also explore tech and market potentials at the event. COM.* 2014 is a much more exciting 3-in-1 event for Big Data, Driverless Cars, and geospatial computing research and technologies!
COM.* 2014 has exciting and high quality technical program sessions including brainstorm plenary keynotes, emerging tech panels, tech shows, workshops, research papers, practice papers, tech talks, posters, hot short talks, and onsite and online exhibits. COM.* 2014 provides diverse opportunities for all decision-makers, engineers, researchers, developers, and users, across industrial companies, government agencies, and academic institutions, to present or demonstrate their latest work or share their latest visions and ideas at the event.
Furthermore, keynote speakers from U.S. DOT, U.S. DOE, Oracle, NVIDIA, Northrop Grumman, COMStar, Federal Big Data Working Group, etc. will reveal the latest relevant technologies and give the key insights about Big Data analytics, driverless cars, and geospatial computing. In particular, future impacts and challenges, new perspectives, future innovation, trends, and interrelation are discussed in various programs at the event.
COM.Geo 2014
COM.Geo conference is a leading-edge conference with a focus on the
latest computing technologies for multidisciplinary research and development
that enables the exploration in geospatial areas. It is an exclusive
event that builds a bridge between computing and geospatial fields.
It connects decision makers, researchers, developers, scientists, and
application users from government, academia, and industry in all related
fields. The attendees were from more than 50 countries all over the
world. COM.Geo publications by IEEE and ACM, read and cited worldwide,
have broad impact on the development of theory, method and practice
in geospatial computing.
COM.Geo 2014 is the 5th International Conference on Computing for
Geospatial Research and Application. The conference
topics include all the geospatial research and application technologies.
The conference of this year highlights Big Data Computing, Cloud Computing,
and Mobile Computing in geospatial fields.
COM.BigData 2014
Big Data is now invading in every aspect of our daily life and promise to revolutionize our existence. It is “the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity” as said McKinsey Global Institute.
Big data provides an opportunity to find insight in new and emerging types of information constructions. How will you take advantage of this opportunity? Big Data definately presents a number of challenges related to its complexity, heterogeneity, and immensity. Many of these novel challenges necessitate rethinking various aspects of information processing philosophy, data management platforms, and computing methodologies in science, engineering, medicine, and business.
We believe that appropriate investment in Big Data will not only lead to a new wave of fundamental technological advances that will be embodied in the next generations of Big Data management platforms, systems, and products, but also has the potential to create huge economic value in the world economy for years to come.
COM.BigData 2014 is the International Summit on Big Data Computing. The summit offers a timely venue for researchers, government decision-makers, and industry partners to present and discuss their latest insights, challenges, and results in big data computing.
COM.DriverlessCar 2014
Driverless cars, also called self-driving cars or robot cars, are
one of the great technological advances for the future transportation.
With the investments by the U.S. government and innovative companies
in recent years, several companies and research institutions working
in the field have fully demonstrated that self-driving vehicles are
technically viable nowadays. Moreover, the last decade has shown a great
leap in public interest in driverless car technologies. There is a common
goal of making driverless cars a reality by 2020's.
Although driverless car technology has become more and more viable recently, we still have a long way to go for self-driving in public. No matter how smart self-driving cars are, safety is the most important thing. Driverless cars do have the potential to positively benefits humanity. Car manufactures have continually added automation features to improve vehicle safety since many decades ago. A full 90 percent of accidents are caused by human errors, such as loss of focus, sleepiness, etc. But robot cars have great technology strengths on safety over human weaknesses. They can react in milliseconds to avoid accidents. This is why the first thing every advocate of driverless cars brings up is the technology's safety benefits.
Additionally, a variety of non-technical issues, such as legal, liability, regulatory, culture, privacy concerns, need to be addressed. These will help consumers trust the capability of driverless cars to give up control and embrace many potential benefits that driverless cars present.
Both tech and non-tech issues will impact driverless vehicle integration into tomorrow's roadway, in particular, the ecological problems because self-driving cars would be mostly propelled by electricity. Of especial importance would be the humanitarian aspect of this technology since driverless cars could significantly improve the quality of life of handicapped people.
Making a strategic decision for automotive innovation is top priority. Both federal governmental policy-makers and technology leaders may need to work together for these. So this is why we advocated the COM.DriverlessCar summit to build a bridge between two sides.
COM.DriverlessCar 2014 is the premier forum featuring with a mixture of inspiring presentations and interactive discussions on driverless car technology and non-technical challenges. Researchers, practitioners, Policy-makers, decision-makers, and managers from government agencies, industry, and academia are invited to discuss the latest trends, strategies, challenges, research and applications as well as policies and business potentials for driverless cars.
Special thanks to Keynote Speakers, Mr. Tim Schmidt, Dr. Brand Niemann, Dr. Xavier Lopez, Mr. Danny Shapiro, Dr. Ray Renner, and Dr. Robinson Pino for their insightful vision to be delivered to our attendees. We appreciate the generosity of sponsors and partners: COMStar Computing Technology Institute, U.S. DOT, U.S. DOE, Oracle, NVIDIA, Northrop Grumman, Federal Big Data Working Group, George Washington University, and IEEE & CPS. We also would like to acknowledge the invaluable efforts and contributions of COM.* team and volunteers.
We look forward to an exciting week of sharing technical ideas and visions with colleagues from around the world. We thank you for attending the onsite & online conferences and being a part of this very important event.
General Chair and Program Chair
COM.* Conferences
and Summits 2014
COM.Big Data 2014, COM.DriverlessCar 2014, COM.Geo 2014
President & CEO
COMStar Computing
Technology Institute
Washington DC, U.S.A.