Alain Chesnais
CTO
SceneCaster.com
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Canada

BIOGRAPHY

ACM and SIGGRAPH Activities

•  Since July 2006 ACM secretary/treasurer

•  Since July 2005 ACM SIGGRAPH past president

•  2005 - 2006 SIG representative to Council

•  2002 –2005 ACM SIGGRAPH president

•  2002 –2004 SGB past chair

•  2000 –2002 SGB chair

•  2001 - SIGGRAPH Conference International Resources Chair

•  1999-2000 - SIG Governing Board (SGB) Vice Chair for Operations

•  1999 - ACM EC Nominating Committee

•  1998 - ACM Executive Search Committee

•  1998 - SIGGRAPH Nominating Committee

•  1997 - SIGGRAPH Conference International Chair

•  1995-1999 - ACM SIGGRAPH Vice Chair

•  1993-1995 - Member at Large ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Committee

•  1993-1995 - ACM Director of Professional Chapters

•  1993-1995 - ACM Local Activities Board/SIG Board Liaison

•  1992 - Organized the local groups’ booth for the SIGGRAPH 92 conference

•  1991-1995 - Chair of the Paris SIGGRAPH chapter

 Professional Experience

•  Since June 2007 CTO at SceneCaster.com

•  July 2005 –May 2007 Vice President Product Development at Tucows Inc

•  March 2004 – July 2005 Director of Engineering at ATI

•  May 2000 – November 2003 Vice President, Engineering at TrueSpectra

•  1996-2000 - Director of Engineering, Alias|Wavefront

•  1993-1996 - Rendering Manager, Wavefront Technologies

• 1992-1993 - CG Consultant

• 1987-1992 - CTO, Studio Base 2

•  1983-1987 – Research Scientist, Centre Mondial Informatique

• 1982-1985 - Research Assistant, CNRS

 Education

•  1981 - lÉcole Normale Supèrieure de l´Enseignement Technique

•  1980 - Diplome d´Etudes Approfondies, Université de Paris XI

•  1979 - Maîtrise Structure Mathématique de l´Informatique, Université de

Paris VII

•  1979 - Maîtrise de Mathématiques, Université de Paris VII

 Awards/Achievements

•  Articles in various journals and conferences

•  Systéme particulier selected for film show SIGGRAPH 87.

•  Opening Sequence selected for film show SIGGRAPH 91.

•  Participant in the SIGGRAPH Future Search conference in Snowbird, 1994.

•  Participant in the SIGGRAPH strategy meetings in 2000, 2001, 2005 and

2006.

STATEMENT

I was first introduced to ACM through the annual SIGGRAPH conference over 20 years ago. I immediately joined the local SIGGRAPH chapter in Paris, France and started volunteering for various activities. I haven’t stopped since. Throughout my volunteer career I have focused on many aspects of ACM activities, ranging from chapters, to SIGs, to Council. I have also been a very active volunteer in SIGGRAPH, our largest SIG. With over 20 years of management experience in the software industry, I feel well equipped to tackle the issues that the vice president of this organization is expected to manage. In my role as SIG Governing Board chair, I led the task force that proposed and implemented a new allocation model for the SIGs, anticipating the technology downturn that was to come when the bubble burst and the impact we expected it to have on ACM finances. That model was adopted by the SIGs and helped the organization weather the storm despite multi-million dollar losses engendered by our largest SIG. I then focused my efforts on ACM SIGGRAPH, after being elected president, and took the SIG’s finances from a 2 ½ million dollar loss when I came in, to generating a modest surplus in my last year.

Today, ACM is a healthy organization that has weathered the tech downturn and currently sees membership rising. The key challenges that I see for ACM in upcoming years have to do with our becoming a truly international organization and attracting younger members into the organization. As a French citizen residing in Canada, I have first hand experience of what it means to be a non American member of our organization. I believe that I can use that experience to help ACM truly become the international organization it should be. I also believe that we need to do much more in terms of expanding our online presence to better cater to the needs of younger researchers and practitioners. Recently at SIGRRAPH, I created a Facebook group for SIGGRAPH members to be able to exchange ideas and communicate with each other using the social networking opportunities that Facebook provides. I believe that there is much more that we can do along these lines to further raise the level of awareness of ACM and significantly grow our membership by becoming more relevant to the needs of students as well as young researchers and practitioners.