We're pleased to announce that CBA has received a 5 million dollar award to launch the Mind Machine Project (MMP), a cross-campus initiative that is revisiting the roots of computation in order to create intelligent machines:
http://mmp.cba.mit.edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au
The funding comes from the Make A Mind Company and its backers, who will be working with MMP to commercialize these technologies.
Another new award comes from DARPA, for "Asynchronous Logic Automata for Large-Scale Circuits and Systems":
http://rala.cba.mit.edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au
This will develop chips based on CBA's RALA architecture, targeting demanding applications in high-performance computing and communications.
Plans are proceeding for FAB5, the Fifth International Fab Lab Forum and Symposium on Digital Fabrication, to be held in Pune, India, August 16-21. There will be a week of hands-on workshops for fab-labbers, and a one day symposium on digital fabrication spanning from research to impact:
http://cba.mit.edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/events/09.08.FAB5/
For those interested in attending, it's time to arrange visas and confirm accommodations; the contact for registration is fab5@fabfoundation.org.
On other fab lab fronts, CBA researchers have been in Afghanistan to work on the FabFi project to produce communications infrastructure:
http://www.fablab.af/fabfi/
(with a follow-up trip leaving from FAB5), Spain to deploy the Basque fab lab:
http://denokinn.blogspot.com/
and Norway for a boot camp:
http://www.fablab.no/
CBA's mobile fab lab recently returned to MIT from the South Bronx, to be prepared for a Midwest tour.
CBA and partners will set up a lab at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle in Maine from July 12-16 for a workshop on Making: Past, Present, and Future:
http://www.haystack-mtn.org/conference.php
Alum Thomas Zimmerman (Prof. Gershenfeld's first grad student) has been named California's Volunteer of the Year by the Governor and First Lady, for his Extreme Science hands-on outreach activities:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31496021
We welcome Nicole Degnan to the CBA office as Executive Assistant; she will be the lead contact for visits and events. She can be reached at nicole.degnan@cba.mit.edu, (617) 253-0392.

This is an occasional newsletter on the activities of CBA and its partners; to be added or removed from this list, or to submit items, please contact CBA's Program Manager Sherry Lassiter <sherry.lassiter@cba.mit.edu>.