The focus of this and some other events is to bring together computer scientists, applied mathematician and engineers to discuss advanced computing for scientific, engineering, and practical problems. This talk is about the role and contribution of applied algorithms within applied computing. It will discuss some specific areas where design and analysis of algorithms is believed to be the key ingredient in solving problems, which are often large and complex and cope with tight timing schedules. The talk is based on recent Handbook of Applied Algorithms (Wiley, March 2008), co-edited by the speaker. The featured application areas for algorithms and discrete mathematics include computational biology, computational chemistry, wireless networks, Internet data streams, computer vision, and emergent systems. Techniques identified as important include graph theory, game theory, data mining, evolutionary, combinatorial and cryptographic, routing and localized algorithms.