dark blue background with multi-colored blue and gold dots flying from top right corner
Digital Innovation for the Public Good

Catalyzing Collaborative Research for High Impact

The UC Noyce Initiative's mission is to advance research collaborations in critical areas of digital technology and innovation to drive informed, ethical and timely discovery for the public good. 
 

It brings together researchers from five UC campuses Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara by building community and awarding competitive grants focused in these key areas:

Robert Noyce and Ann Bowers

Robert Noyce and Ann Bowers Legacies of drive and innovation

Robert "Bob" N. Noyce, Ph.D. was a physicist and one of the most pivotal visionaries and innovators of the 20th century. He invented the integrated circuit, more commonly known as the microchip, and co-founded both Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Ann Schmeltz Bowers was a technology industry executive pioneer, longtime philanthropist and the wife of Noyce. In 2020, The Robert N. Noyce Trust made a gift to the University of California system to launch the UC Noyce Initiative to honor their legacies.

The Power of Five

The power and potential of the UC Noyce Initiative lies in our cooperative spirit. Together, we are driving discovery around the most pressing challenges and exciting opportunities in digital innovation. Learn more about the Power of Five.

UC logos from Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Francisco and Santa Barbara

Latest News

A New Vision for Data Security

In mid-2022, Instagram began asking an assortment of its users to complete a survey about their race, ethnicity and gender. By the end of the year, a huge number of people had filled out the survey, which was part of a new effort to ensure that the social media platform was fair and inclusive.

Behind the scenes, Professor Dawn Song, PhD, an expert in computer security and privacy, was helping ensure that the sensitive data was staying safe while still enabling researchers to analyze it.

Fundamental Physics to Build Computers of the Future

When he was 12 years old, Hartmut Haeffner got his first computer— a Commodore 64. On the C64, Haeffner learned to program, first for fun and then as a job, using the computer to track sporting events in his native Germany. He was fascinated with both what the computer could do, and the underlying technology that made it possible.

When Data Science Meets Medicine

As a child, Bin Yu never dreamed she’d go to college. She grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, when nearly all of the country’s institutions of higher learning were closed. But in third grade, a cousin gave Yu a math book. She fell in love with the structured way of thinking and the concrete answers found in the textbook.