Steering Commitee of the Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Conference Series
History of the Conference Series
In 1999, the Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing conference was held in Karlsruhe, Germany, and this was held again in 2000, in Bristol, UK. In 2001, the conference changed its name to the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, and was held in Atlanta, USA. This conference series continued through to 2012, in Pittsburgh, USA. In 2002, a conference series was established on Pervasive Computing, with the inaugural conference being held in Zurich, Switzerland. This conference series also continued through to 2012, in Newcastle, UK.In 2012, the community decided to merge the Pervasive Computing conference and the Ubiquitous Computing conference, to offer a single venue for the leading worldwide research in Pervasive and Ubiquitous computing. The first joint conference (International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing aka Ubicomp) was held in 2013, in Seattle, USA, and the joint conference series continues today.
Steering Committee Responsibilities
The Steering Committee is responsible for the following:
- promoting and maintaining the Ubicomp conference as the premiere venue for researchers and practitioners interested in all aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive computing;
- ensuring the highest quality for the contents of the event;
- deciding where the Ubicomp conference is held each year;
- providing advice to the current and future chairs of the Ubicomp conference;
- resolving general issues involved with the Ubicomp conference.
Steering Committee Membership
The Steering Committee is comprised of two of the program or general chairs from each of the five most recent (Pervasive and Ubicomp or joint) conferences. The current members are:
- A.J. Brush, Microsoft Research, USA (Ubicomp 2014)
- Tanzeem Choudhury, Cornell University, USA (Ubicomp 2015)
- Anind K. Dey, (chair) Carnegie Mellon University, USA (Ubicomp 2012)
- Gillian Hayes, University of California, Irvine, USA (Ubicomp 2012)
- Jeffrey Hightower, Google, USA (Pervasive 2011)
- Elaine M. Huang, University of Zurich, Switzerland (Pervasive 2011)
- Judy Kay, University of Sydney, Australia (Pervasive 2012)
- Julie Kientz, University of Washington, USA (Ubicomp 2014)
- James Landay, Stanford, USA (Ubicomp 2011)
- Marc Langheinrich, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland (Ubicomp 2013, 2015)
- Tom Martin, Virginia Tech, USA (ISWC SC Vice-Chair)
- Kenji Mase, Nagoya University, Japan (Ubicomp 2015)
- Friedemann Mattern, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Ubicomp 2013)
- Patrick Olivier, University of Newcastle, UK (Pervasive 2012)
- Silvia Santini, TU Dresden, Germany (Ubicomp 2013)
- Junehwa Song, KAIST, South Korea (Ubicomp 2014)
- Thad Starner, Google, Georgia Tech, USA (ISWC SC Chair)
- Xing Xie, Microsoft Research, China (Ubicomp 2011)
- Koji Yatani, University of Tokyo, Japan (Ubicomp 2015)
Future Conference Hosts
We are actively soliciting hosts for 2017, with preference to bids from the Americas, with a host proposal deadline in mid-2015 (see below). The host proposal process is intended to be lightweight as possible while allowing the SC to conduct an informed review, and need not be a "polished" document, but should include:
- Details of the city, including typical hotel costs
- Details of at least one possible venue, including an indication of the cost of hiring the venue for 1 day of workshops and 3 days of multi-track conference, and the AV facilities required, and WiFi networking capable of handling 600+ connected devices. This need not be final but are indicative of the costs of holding the conference in that location.
- Doable dates.
- Indications of potential collocation with other events. For example, we have collocated with ISWC for several conferences, and this has contribited to the enriching and inspiring breadth of work presented. Pervasive 2012 also collocated with DIS. The SC actively encourages collocation as an opportunity for our community to exchange ideas with other research audiences. We have built an increasingly strong and synergistic relationship with ISWC, with collocation since 2012.
- A possible schedule of the conference, which should be based on recent UbiComps or Pervasives but should include 3 simultaneous paper tracks to accommodate an expected total of 12-15 paper sessions. Innovative ideas for other sessions or sub-events are very welcome.
- Short bios of the general chair(s) and any local chairs or other community members who have indicated their willingness to serve. Program Chairs for the archival papers/notes track should NOT be specified. The SC will work with the general chairs to choose program chairs after the host is chosen.
- Potential local sponsors, both public bodies and local companies.
Prospective hosts are encouraged to review the ACM Conference Organizers Manual , the ACM Conference Financial Management guide, and the ACM sponsored conference TMRF Guidelines (though a TMRF is not necessary at this stage). As an ACM sponsored conference, the ACM takes on financial liability (e.g. signing contracts for the venue) and will assist the general chair(s) with negotiations with a suitable venue as necessary.
As with previous conferences, it is important to keep the registration costs and other costs associated with attending the conference as low as possible, so that attendance is open to as many as possible. Please focus on keeping costs such as food modest, and on listing low-cost accommodation possibilities.
The conference has regularly moved around three regions: Asia/Pacific, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and the Americas. There is a strong intention to continue to do this with the merged conference, hence a preference for the Americas in 2017.
Deadline for proposals: 18 December 2015
If you are thinking of submitting a proposal, please get in touch with the chair of the steering committee, Anind Dey anind@cs.cmu.edu, or any other member of the steering committee ( www.ubicomp.org/sc/). The SC is happy to help advise prospective hosts before a final proposal is submitted.