The National Modeling and Simulation Coalition (NMSC) held its Inaugural Congress on Feb. 6 in Washington D.C. signaling the first nationwide meeting of the organization, which spans the entire modeling and simulation industry.

The NMSC focused on establishing, for the first time, a national agenda for maintaining the growth of modeling and simulation technology and its incorporation into all areas of the national economy, welfare, and security.

Richard Fujimoto, chair of the School of Computational Science and Engineering and interim director of the Institute for Data and High Performance Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a member of the interim Board of Directors and interim chair of the Education and Professional Development Standing Committee, one of five standing committees of the National Modeling and Simulation Coalition. He chaired the inaugural meeting for this committee at the Feb. 6 event.

“A critical issue that the committee is starting to address is how to increase the number of people trained and educated in modeling and simulation in order to meet the high workforce demand,” Fujimoto said. “We are developing a national agenda that will focus in part on this issue.”

The committee’s work will span the entire education pipeline, including K-12, higher education, technical education and continuing education.

Within the School of Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech, the approach is to develop education programs in computing for students – who are studying engineering, the sciences and other areas - that build up their computing capability, said Fujimoto.

“We really must be focused on developing workforce needs,” the CSE chair said.

At the event in Washington, D.C., Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer for the United States, gave the keynote address after a ceremonial ribbon cutting for the NMSC.

The event featured several hundred key leaders from industry, government, and academia. Also attending from Georgia Tech was Margaret Loper, a chief scientist in the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Participants set the stage for the initial organizational and committee sessions and to define a detailed action plan in four key areas: Education and Professional Development, Technology Research and Development, Industrial Development, and Business Practice. The outcome of the inaugural meeting included a national action plan to broaden the use of modeling and simulation across these four key areas. This action plan will provide a road map for the modeling and simulation community and in expanding the depth and breadth of the technology and industry.