News From ACM-W India
For the 6th year in a row, ACM India and ACM-W India hosted the annual event celebrating computer science in India. As per precedent, we brought in some truly esteemed guests and speakers to make the event the great success that it was. Feb 5th, 6th and 7th saw many esteemed ACM professional and student chapter members descend on the BITS Pilani, Goa campus for a few days of invigorating talks and presentations. The event was hosted by the ACM Goa Professional chapter.
Day 1 saw the re-instating of Inter Research Institute Student Seminar (IRISS). This provided a forum for research scholars from Indian academic institutes to present their work and was followed by a poster presentation for the delegates to view and interact with the students. 16 of the best PHD students also presented their work as talks. Professor Krithi Ramamritham, IIT Bombay delivered an engaging keynote address on “Smart things”. Professor S Srikanth of IIT Bombay delivered a invited talk and the day closed with many potential employers presenting their problem statements for the benefit of the researchers.
Day 2 dawned bright and early and held the main agenda for the ACM India event. The inauguration happened in the presence of Professor Alexander Wolf, President of ACM and Professor at Imperial College, UK, Fabrizio Gagliardi, ACM Europe chair, Dr Srinivas Padmanabhuni, ACM India Chair, Dr Sheila Anand (ACM-W India Chair), Prof K E Raman, Acting Director of BITS Pilani Goa Campus and Shri Chandrashekar Sahasrabudhe, CEO, ACM India. The morning was made more exciting by the announcement of the “Best Dissertation award” to Rijurekha Sen from IIT Bombay for her work on “Different Sensing Modalities for Traffic monitoring in Developing Regions”. Prof. Kathy Yelick from University of California, Berkeley delivered a keynote on “Antisocial Parallelism: Avoiding, Hiding and Managing Communication” to an enraptured audience.
The afternoon session was kicked off by a keynote address by Prof. John Hopcroft, winner of the 1986 A M Turing prize. His address on the “Future of Computer Science” was very relevant and interesting to the large student population.
Prof. Susan Rodger from Duke University capped the evening by her talk on “Computer Science Concepts Come Alive”.
On Day 3, ACM India was proud to launch the Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). It was a privilege to have the global SIGCSE champion Prof. Susan Rodgers with us for this. Prof. Madhavan Mukund of CMI Chennai chaired a panel discussion on “Overcoming challenges within the university system” – a much needed and hotly debated topic.
The local organizing committee including members from ACM Goa Chapter, faculty members and student volunteers from Goa University and BITS Pilani Goa campus and ACM members from Persistent Systems, Verna worked tirelessly to make this event a successful and memorable one. The event was sponsored by Oracle Academy, Google, TCS, Microsoft and Persistent.
The ACM-W India Executive Committee with Susan Rogers.
