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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:

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Cybersecurity

Addressing Society's Needs for Greater Digital Security and Privacy

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Computational Health

Supporting Innovation at the Intersection of Technology, Health Science and Medicine.

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Quantum Computing

Revolutionizing Computation Capabilities to Solve Societies Most Complex Challenges.

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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.

Read more about their extraordinary lives and 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.

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News

Ann, a research participant in a study of speech neuroprostheses led by UCSF's Edward Chang, is connected to computers that translate her brain signals into the speech and facial movements of an avatar. At left is UCSF clinical research coordinator Max Dougherty. (Photo by Noah Berger)

Novel Brain Implant Helps Paralyzed Woman Speak Using a Digital Avatar

  • by Marni Ellery

Emerging speech neuroprostheses may offer a way to communicate for people who are unable to speak due to paralysis or disease, but fast, high-performance decoding has not yet been demonstrated. Now, transformative new work by researchers at UCSF and UC Berkeley shows that more natural speech decoding is possible using the latest advances in artificial intelligence.