Open Call for Volunteers for Presidential Task Forces

ACM President Yannis Ioannidis is planning to create 10 task forces as part of ACM 4.0, a long-term strategic plan for ACM, and is inviting volunteers to serve on these task forces

Below are brief descriptions of each of the task forces. Each will comprise a cross-section of individuals selected for their interest and relevant expertise. Although the length of service for the different task forces may vary, it is anticipated that each will produce an initial report in about six months.

If you would like to be considered for membership in one or more of these task forces, please take a few minutes to submit your name using the form here. The form asks for a short statement of your interest in the task force, which can be accompanied by relevant attachments.

Please reply to this call for volunteers by May 22.

We apologize in advance if there are too many volunteers for your preferred task force, preventing you from participating.

  1. The Membership Models task force is charged with identifying membership models that will interest all those who benefit from ACM to become members and will inspire those who are members to become volunteers. It will explore new membership models that create the sense of a unified large community but still convey the feeling of “home” to each member, offering different benefits that are meaningful to different constituencies.
  2. The Globalization task force will explore different pathways toward geographic diversity at all possible levels: election and award candidates, volunteer leaders, board and committee members, and members in general. This task force should investigate the formation of additional regional councils or other forms of governance structures that will collectively cover the world.
  3. The Youthification task force will explore different pathways toward age diversity, with emphasis on the younger generation. This age diversity will be considered at all appropriate levels: board and committee members and members in general.
  4. The Code of Ethics and Social Responsibility task force is charged with development of mechanisms to promulgate the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, the cornerstone of ethics and social responsibility for ACM. This task force will explore ways of familiarizing our community with the essentials of the Code and educating it on ethical issues in general. It will also identify how the Code can become an intrinsic part of the everyday life of computing professionals, fulfilling their social responsibility in practice, e.g., by following the ACM Principles for Responsible Algorithmic Systems.
  5. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) task force will explore appropriate mechanisms for ACM members to offer their computing technologies expertise in the context of multidisciplinary efforts toward achieving the 17 UN SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
  6. The Open Science task force will establish services to help researchers operate according to the Open Science paradigm (which includes Open Access as an important component) and the demands it brings, for example, reproducibility of experiments, transparency throughout the research life cycle, and new forms of scholarly communication and reviewing.
  7. The Products and Services Portfolio task force will take a fresh look at the overall portfolio of ACM products and services through the lens of the continuously evolving and diversified needs of different parts of the computing community.
  8. The Financial Models task force will design new financial models that will ensure the prosperity of ACM, in the context of a potentially new membership model and a renewed portfolio of products and services in the fast-approaching era of ACM Open.
  9. The Regional Offices task force will explore establishing regional ACM offices around the world. This would require identifying the services that would be most efficiently and effectively offered by regional staff.
  10. The Bylaws task force will re-examine some fundamental aspects of our current bylaws that affect ACM as a scientific professional society, including the lengths and limits of the terms served by leaders in key leadership positions, and the structure of the ACM Council with respect to its representativeness of all ACM member constituencies.