ACM MemberNet - September 28, 2021

Welcome to the September 2021 edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read past issues of MemberNet online at https://www.acm.org/membership/acm-membernet-archive.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

September 28, 2021

TOP STORIES

AWARDS

MEMBER RECOGNITION

SIG AWARDS

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

PUBLIC POLICY

MEMBER PROGRAMS

LEARNING CENTER

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

STUDENT NEWS

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

CHAPTERS NEWS

ACM-W NEWS

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

TOP STORIES

Video Series Celebrates ACM's 2019 and 2020 Award Recipients

The surge of the COVID-19 delta variant, international travel restrictions and restrictions on indoor gatherings forced ACM to cancel its Awards Banquet planned for October 23, 2021. Over the next several weeks, ACM will send emails to its members containing videos highlighting the achievements of the 2019 and 2020 Award recipients that were prepared for the Banquet. Watch your inbox for the first of these emails, coming soon.

ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and society at large. More information on nominating candidates for future awards is available on the ACM Awards website.

Call for Nominations for Fran Allen Mentorship Award

ACM announces a new award that highlights the value of mentoring in the development of computing professionals. The ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring emphasizes contributions in mentoring students and young professionals from diverse communities. Please consider nominating a deserving individual for this unique award that promotes diversity in computing. Nominations are due December 15.

ACM Special Interest Groups Extending Terms

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following Special Interest Groups will hold elections in 2022: SIGCSE, SIGHPC, SIGIR, and SIGLOG.

SIG elections are generally scheduled to take place in odd-numbered years, with the elected officers holding office for a set number of years as set forth in the SIG's bylaws. There is a provision for the SIG's Executive Committee to make a one-time request to extend its term of office. This provision was introduced so that SIGs did not have to hold an expensive election when officers would be rerunning for office since incumbents were usually reelected.

In accordance with ACM's Constitution and Bylaws, the following SIGs have requested, and the SIG Governing Board EC has granted, an extension of terms:

  • SIGAI, Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence
  • SIGSIM, Special Interest Group on Simulation

As a voting member, you may petition the ACM to request an election. A petition with the names/signatures of at least 1% of the SIG's members must be submitted to ACM HQ by 14 October 2021. To initiate the petition process, please contact Pat Ryan, ACM's Chief Operating Officer ([email protected]). If the petition is successful, the SIG will be asked to form a nominating committee and begin the electoral process.

ACM Focus, a New Way to Explore and Interact with ACM Content

ACM Focus is a new way to explore the breadth and variety of ACM content, and to stay current with the latest trends in your technical community. ACM Focus consists of a set of AI-curated custom feeds by subject, each serving up a focused set of the latest relevant ACM content. These high-level subject-based feeds of original and curated content provide overall awareness of relevant ACM activities, people, talks and a variety of published works. Current topic areas are Artificial Intelligence; Information Systems; the Web; Society and the Computing Profession; Applied Computing; Graphics and Computer-Aided Design; Networks and Communications; Architecture; Hardware; Human-Computer Interaction; Security and Privacy; Software Engineering and Programming Languages; and Computational Theory. The feeds are built in an automated fashion and are refined as the user interacts with them.

Discover the latest "ACM Selects," Shortlists of Learning Resources Curated by Experts

ACM Selects are themed shortlists curated by subject matter experts for both serious and emerging computing professionals, with the goal of providing new ways to discover relevant resources, either through ACM or authenticated by ACM-affiliated specialists. The latest Select covers Spotlight on Computing in Bangladesh.

AWARDS

ACM Award Nomination Submission Procedures

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and society at large. ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments.

Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members. And read ACM Past President and former Awards Committee Chair Cherri Pancake's article in Communications of the ACM, "Dispelling Common Myths about ACM Awards and Honors."

The deadline for nominations for the main awards is December 15, 2021. Other deadlines: Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research: October 8; Doctoral Dissertation: October 31 (for dissertations being translated into English: November 30).

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations

The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 5 years of Professional ACM membership in the last 10 years. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is December 3.

SIG AWARDS

ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields

ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in more than 35 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at conferences:

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

AI for Good Global Summit 2021 (online), continuous digital event

The 2021 edition of the AI for Good Global Summit is a continuous digital event, featuring weekly programming across multiple formats, platforms and time zones, including keynotes, expert webinars, project pitches, Q&As, performances, demos, interviews, networking and more. Upcoming highlights include presentations on AI and climate science, health, and data, and a keynote on "The EU's Artificial Intelligence Act: How will it impact your life and business?".

SIGITE 2021, October 6 to 9, Snowbird, Utah (hybrid)

The theme of the 22nd ACM Annual Conference on Information Technology Education will be “Empowering IT Education.” The global pandemic has made it clear that modern education, work, and communication depend on a sound IT infrastructure. Educated professionals keep the IT infrastructure operating and growing. IT education is empowering individuals, organizations, and society to advance during current disruption and change. Daren Thayne (Domo) and ACM Fellow Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan) will keynote.

SIGDOC 2021, October 12 to 14 (hybrid)

The conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Design of Communication will be hybrid this year, with virtual presentations and optional in-person meetup hubs across eight locations worldwide. The theme of SIGDOC 2021 is "Advocacy, Accountability, and Coalitions Across Contexts," which will be explored in the contexts of communication design, user experience practice, teaching and learning, and professional and technical communication.

SPLASH 2021, October 17 to 22, Chicago, Illinois (hybrid)

The ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity embraces all aspects of software construction and delivery to make it the premier conference at the intersection of programming, languages, and software engineering. ACM Fellow Luca Cardelli (Microsoft Research and University of Oxford) is the scheduled keynote speaker. Invited speakers are ACM Turing Award laureate Leslie Lamport (Microsoft Research), Robert Rand (University of Chicago), Heidy Khlaaf (University College London), and Martin Abadi (Google).

ASSETS 2021, October 18 to 22 (online)

The ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility explores the design, evaluation, and use of computing and information technologies to benefit people with disabilities and older adults. The five-day virtual format allows for the addition of more online events for socializing, as well as special events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SIGACCESS. Keynoting will be Axel Leblois (G3ict) and Annalu Waller (University of Dundee).

MICRO 2021, October 18 to 22 (online)

The 54th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture will be held as a global online event, broadcast from the host city of Athens, Greece. Sessions will cover non-volatile memory, energy efficiency, security & privacy, parallelism, accelerators and more. Workshops include cloud computing, inclusion and diversity, chip architectures and multi-model DNN workloads. Keynotes will be delivered by Michael Clark (AMD), Anastasia Ailamaki (EPFL), and Sien Lie (Cerebras).

ACMMM 2021, October 20 to 24, Chengdu, China

The ACM Multimedia conference brings together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to present innovative research results and discuss recent advancements. Workshops will cover Smart TV Content Production, Access and Delivery; Computing for Urban Data; and much more. Keynote speakers are Wen Gao (Peking University and Peng-Cheng Laboratory), H. V. Jagadish (University of Michigan), Cordelia Schmid (INRIA and Google), James Lester (North Carolina State University), Zhengyou Zhang (Tencent AI Lab and Tencent Robotics X) and Jingren Zhou (Ant Group).

CSCW 2021, October 23 to 27 (online)

The ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing explores the technical, social, material, and theoretical challenges of designing technology to support collaborative work and life activities. Keynote speakers Josephine Miliza (Association of Progressive Communications) and Mary L. Gray (Microsoft Research/Indiana University) will open and close the conference. Workshops include "Addressing Challenges and Opportunities in Online Extremism Research," "The Future of Research on Online Health Communities," and much more.

ICCAD 2021, November 1 to 4 (online)

The IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design is the premier conference devoted to technical innovations in electronic design automation. Keynoting will be Vivienne Sze (MIT), Elison Matioli (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), David Patterson (University of California, Berkeley) and Dirk Ziegenbein (Robert Bosch GmbH). The talks will cover Efficient Computing for AI and Robotics; GaN Power Electronics; RISC-V; and Designing Reliable Distributed Systems.

PUBLIC POLICY

ACM Europe TPC Urges EC Adoption of Broad Range of Vital "Digital Principles"

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs

Just over six months ago, the European Commission issued the Communication 2030 Digital Compass: the European Way for the Digital Decade, a sweeping set of initiatives born of the Commission's conviction that "digital policies must help nurture more democratic and inclusive societies, and ensure that all people in the EU can leverage the digital transformation for a better life."

To that end, in mid-May the Commission formally opened a consultation seeking stakeholder and public comment on a set of wide-ranging "Digital Principles" to form the bases for a rare "joint interinstitutional solemn declaration" of the European Commission, Parliament, and Council.

In its response to the Commission filed early this month, the ACM Europe Technology Policy Committee addressed a host of issues, among them: robust, equitable internet access; user privacy; e-government and e-health services; online child protection; climate action; digital literacy; universal Informatics education; and ethical algorithm design.

In addressing these issues, Europe TPC urged the Commission to substantively consider and, as appropriate, borrow from: Europe TPC's recent comments in response to the Commission's just-closed AI Regulation consultation; the joint ACM Europe and US Technology Policy Committees' Statement on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability; Europe TPC's white paper on Automated Decision Making produced with Informatics Europe; and the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

At-Large Representatives to ACM USTPC Leadership Group Elected

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) Chair Jeremy Epstein announced this month that incumbent L. Jean Camp (Professor at the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University) and new member Joshua Kroll (Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School) were selected for two At-Large seats on the Committee's managing Secretariat. They will serve one- and two-year terms, respectively. Camp and Kroll were chosen by vote among USTPC's approximately 140 members from a slate of seven strong candidates identified by a nominations task force led by USTPC Vice Chair Alec Yasinsac. Committee members Debra Chapman and Juan Gilbert also contributed to that effort.

Connect with ACM's Tech Policy Groups!

To learn more about upcoming programs and the work of ACM's Technology Policy groups, follow @ACMpolicy, @USTPC, and @EuropeTPC on Twitter. If you're interested in contributing to the work of ACM's Europe or US Technology Policy Committees, please email [email protected].

MEMBER PROGRAMS

Become an Ambassador for ACM—You Could Be a Grand Prize Winner!

The Ambassadors for ACM program rewards ACM members like you for encouraging new members to join. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences with prospective members. The Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral. Submit the ACM Referral Form, and your referrals can join ACM at a special discount rate. Our members are our greatest asset. Your support of ACM is critical to our continuing efforts to advance computing as a science and a profession. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

Take advantage of HP's best-in-class technology with the full portfolio of personal and printing systems. The HP Employee Purchase Program (EPP) offers HP consumer and commercial-grade products with everyday discounts up to 35% off. You can also take advantage of instant rebates, coupons, and HP Home and Home Office sales promotions that combine with your EPP discount for even greater savings. HP offers ACM members exclusive savings on the most innovative PCs, printers, and accessories. HP offers personalized assistance in choosing the perfect electronics for all of your personal or business needs. Visit the HP Direct Employee Purchase Program page for more information.

ACM Academic Membership Option

The ACM Academic Department Membership option allows universities and colleges to provide ACM Professional Membership to their faculty at a greatly reduced collective cost. ACM offers a membership for academic department faculty at the cost of $49 per person, more than half off the standard ACM professional membership fee of $99 per year. Through this program, each faculty member will receive all the benefits of individual professional ACM membership, including Communications of the ACM, member rates to ACM Special Interest Group conferences, member subscription rates to ACM journals, and much more. To learn more, visit the ACM Academic Department Membership page or contact Cindy Ryan.

ACM and SocialCoder Team Up for Positive Impact through Computing

You can use your technical skills for social good and offer volunteer support on software development projects to organizations who could not otherwise afford it. SocialCoder connects volunteer programmers/software developers with registered charities and helps match them to suitable projects based on their skills, experience, and the causes they care about. Learn more about ACM's partnership with SocialCoder, and how you can get involved.

LEARNING CENTER

ACM ByteCast Interviews André Barroso

ACM ByteCast is ACM's series of podcast interviews with researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests share their experiences, the lessons they've learned, and their own visions for the future of computing. The latest episode features Luiz André Barroso, Head of the Office of Cross-Google Engineering, Fellow of ACM, AAAS and Google, and 2020 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award recipient.

Watch ACM TechTalk with ACM Fellow Manish Gupta

Watch the ACM TechTalk, Human Inspired Artificial Intelligence, to be presented on Wednesday, October 6 at 11 AM EDT by Manish Gupta, Director of Google Research India and an ACM Fellow.

Visit the TechTalks Archive for our full archive of past TechTalks.

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

ACM Career & Job Center Connects You with Career Opportunities

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. Thankfully, the world's leading companies, colleges and universities come to the ACM Career & Job Center to find the best candidates. By creating an account on the ACM Career and Job Center, you'll gain access to a wide range of tools to help you find the perfect job:

  • Finding a Job - Use the job search tools to find a job that matches your search criteria.
  • Create and Manage Email Alerts - Stay on top of the latest job openings. Receive an email when new jobs match your search criteria.
  • Create/Post Resumes - Get noticed by employers. Create or upload a resume with our easy-to-use tools so employer can get in touch with you.
  • View Saved Jobs - Save jobs that interest you, add notes, share with friends, and track your applies to keep on top of your job search.

For any assistance with the ACM Career and Job Center, please contact ACM's Advertising Sales Manager, Ilia Rodriguez.

STUDENT NEWS

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs) offer a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. The most recent SRC winners presented at SIGCOMM 2021. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

  • SC 2021, November 14-19, deadline October 8
  • SIGCSE 2022, March 2-5, deadline October 8
  • ISEC 2022, February 24-26, deadline October 15
  • SAC 2022, April 25-29, deadline October 15
  • ICSE 2022, May 21-29, deadline December 31

Learn more about competitions on the SRC submissions page and SRC guidelines for students.

ACM Scholarships for Women Computing Students to Attend Research Conferences

The ACM Community of Support for Women in Computing (ACM-W) provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. This exposure to the computer science research world can encourage a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position). For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate

ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including free online books and courses and access to ACM's Career & Job Center. This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special transition offer through ACM's convenient online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

About the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program

Book the speaker for your next event through the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) and deliver compelling and insightful content to your audience. ACM will cover the cost of transportation for the speaker to travel to your event. Our program features renowned thought leaders in academia, industry and government speaking about the most important topics in the computing and IT world today. Our booking process is simple and convenient.
See ACM Distinguished Speakers in action on our flickr page.

Dharm Singh Jat is a Professor of Computer Science at Namibia University of Science and Technology. His interests span the areas of multimedia communications, wireless technologies, mobile communication systems, edge roof computing, software defined networks, network security, and internet of things. Singh is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers and the Computer Society of India, as well as a Senior Member of IEEE. His DSP lectures cover topics including "Evaluation of Video Quality of Service in Wireless Networks" and "Smart Computing and Communication: Enabling Future IoT."

For more information on Dharm, please visit his DSP speaker information page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

IEEE-CS and ACM are sharing their invited speaker programs, to further the dissemination of technical knowledge of computing fields that greatly benefit both memberships. IEEE-CS chapter volunteers can host a speaker from ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP), with access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry, by following the instructions on the DSP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an IEEE Computer Society Chapter.

IEEE-CS provides a popular offering of first-quality speakers serving its professional and student chapters. The Distinguished Visitors Program (DVP) owes its success to the many volunteers and staff members of the Computer Society who generously contribute their time and talent. Organizers of an ACM chapter, conference, or event can host a speaker from IEEE-CS's DVP by following the instructions on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

Welcome New ACM Chapters

Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. ACM welcomes new chapters that were chartered August 11 to September 17, 2021:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • Ashesi University ACM-W Student Chapter, Accra, Ghana
  • BMSTU ACM Student Chapter, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian Federation
  • MST ACM-W Student Chapter, Limbe, Malawi
  • NAU North Valley ACM Student Chapter, Northern Arizona University, Phoenix
  • NSRIT ACM Student Chapter, Nadimpalli Satyanarayana Raju Institute of Technology, Visakhapatnam, India
  • Oriental OCT ACM Student Chapter, Oriental College of Technology, Bhopal, India
  • San Agustin University ACM Student Chapter, Arequipa, Peru

ACM-W NEWS

ACM-W's Webinar Series Celebrates Women in Computing

By highlighting successful technical women who are leading diverse careers in the technology industry, ACM-W’s webinar series, Celebrating Technology Leaders, aims to inform students and early-career professionals about the multitude of career options open to them. The latest episode featured "Tech Returnships for Women" on August 18; previous webinars featured tech entrepreneurship, UI/UX, data, robotics and cybersecurity. To watch the recorded webinars, visit the YouTube playlist.

Join ACM-W's Membership Email List

Did you know that ACM-W offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is a communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. To join the list, visit: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC. Also read the ACM-W Connections newsletter for updates on ACM-W programs: local celebrations, scholarships and awards, chapters, and more.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization Publishes First Issue

The new journal ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization (TELO) has published its first issue. Articles in the inaugural issue are open for public access. The journal covers evolutionary computation and related areas such as population-based methods, Bayesian optimization, and swarm intelligence.
Read the ACM news release.

ACM Queue Presents: "Declarative Machine Learning Systems"

In their article for ACM Queue, Piero Molino and Christopher Ré, both at Stanford University, describe how the future of machine learning will depend on it being in the hands of people outside the field. Current ML models are trained by experienced developers, but the next wave of ML systems will have a more abstract interface, which will allow others to perform the same tasks. Declarative interfaces are well-suited for this goal, by hiding complexity and favoring separation of interest, and ultimately leading to increased productivity.

Subscribe to Communications of the ACM

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