Mynatt, who also serves as the executive director of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), was a member of a forward-looking panel that addressed the roles of government, academia, industry and the research community in finding and funding the next "Big Ideas." Thomas Kalil, the deputy director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, moderated the panel that also included Corporate Vice President Peter Lee of Microsoft Research, President Charles Vest of the National Academy of Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering Professor Stefan Savage from the University of California, San Diego.

The symposium was organized by the Computing Community Consortium, in collaboration with the National Coordination Office (NCO) for NITRD.