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AWS Automated Reasoning call for proposals - Spring 2021

Security assurance, backed by mathematical proof

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About this CFP

AWS is committed to helping you achieve the highest levels of security in the cloud. Using automated reasoning technology, the application of mathematical logic to help answer critical questions about your infrastructure, AWS is able to detect previously missed misconfigurations, or show their absence. We call this provable security that provides higher assurance in security—both of the cloud and in the cloud. We are looking to fund research in these subcategories:

  • Automated reasoning, including model checking
  • Theorem proving
  • Invariant discovery
  • Improvements to SAT/SMT solvers
  • Correct-by-construction software
  • Abstract interpretation
  • Static analysis

Timeline

Submission period: 3/22 - 4/23
Decision letters will be sent out August 2021

Award details

Selected Principal Investigators (PIs) may receive the following:

  • Unrestricted funds, no more than $80,000 USD on average
  • AWS Promotional Credits, no more than $20,000 USD on average
  • Training resources, including AWS tutorials and hands-on sessions with Amazon scientists and engineers

Awards are structured as one-year unrestricted gifts. The budget should include a list of expected costs specified in USD, and should not include administrative overhead costs. The final award amount will be determined by the awards panel.

Eligibility requirements

Please refer to the ARA Program rules on the FAQ page.

Proposal requirements

Proposals should be prepared according to the proposal template. In addition, to submit a proposal for this CFP, please also include the following information:

  1. Does your work target specification/protocol-level or implementation/code-level testing or proofs?
  2. Describe current applications of your work (e.g, libraries, codebases and industry code).
  3. What are potential applications of your work to Amazon?
  4. What assumptions are made by your work? If the techniques proposed are sound: What are issues that may invalidate this result?
  5. If your work involves the development and maintenance of a tool:
    1. What license is your tool released under?
    2. What on-boarding/tutorial material is available?
    3. Is your tool actively maintained (commits within last 3 months)? How many active contributors does your project have?

Selection criteria

ARA will make the funding decisions based on the potential impact to the research community and quality of the scientific content.

Expectations from recipients

To the extent deemed reasonable, Award recipients should acknowledge the support from ARA. Award recipients will inform ARA of publications, presentations, code and data releases, blogs/social media posts, and other speaking engagements referencing the results of the supported research or the Award. Award recipients are expected to provide updates and feedback to ARA via surveys or reports on the status of their research. Award recipients will have an opportunity to work with ARA on an informational statement about the awarded project that may be used to generate visibility for their institutions and ARA.

Additional information

This CFP is funded bi-annually.

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