ACM Expands Footprint, Launches ACM India Council

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The Association for Computing Machinery
Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession

Contact: Virginia Gold
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BANGALORE – January 20, 2010 - The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, today announced the expansion of its worldwide presence with the launch of the ACM India Council http://india.acm.org. A special one-day technical symposium will introduce the council members on January 21, at the Hotel Taj Residency, Bangalore http://compute.acmbangalore.org/acmindia/ .

“The launch of the India Council is a very significant ACM initiative to recognize and support Indian ACM members and activities,” said Dr. Anand Deshpande, ACM India Co-Chair and Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director of Persistent Systems. “By strengthening ACM’s ties in the region and raising awareness of its many benefits and resources among the public and Indian decision-makers, we can play an active role in the critical technical, educational, and social issues that surround the computing community.”

The day-long launch event features speakers that include ACM Turing Award winners from India, Europe and the US, ACM India Fellows, and research leaders from India and the US. The ACM Turing Award, widely considered the “Nobel Prize in computing,” is the most prestigious annual award given for long lasting contributions to the science and the profession of computing http://awards.acm.org/turing .

The ACM India Council, a team of 18 leading Indian computer scientists from academia and industry, will spearhead the expansion of ACM’s high-quality technical activities, conferences and services for the computing profession in India. The ACM India Council will serve this growing constituency by making ACM increasingly relevant to India and its vast pool of IT professionals and students. Activities include increasing the number of high-quality technical meetings in India; growing the number of ACM chapters (particularly for students); expanding interest in nominations for the many ACM professional awards; providing recognition for outstanding work done in India; and supporting women in successfully pursuing computing careers. Through these initiatives, ACM intends to be an important partner in advancing computing as a science and profession in India.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, ACM President, commented that “our goal is to share ACM’s vast array of valued resources and services on a global scale. We want to discover the work and welcome talent from all corners of the computing arena so that we are better positioned to appreciate the key issues and challenges within India’s academic, research, and professional computing communities, and to respond accordingly.”

For more than six decades, ACM has remained true to its mission of uniting the world’s computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share ideas, and address the field’s most pressing challenges. With more than 96,000 members worldwide, ACM promotes the robust exchange and vigorous debate of ideas that constitute the lifeblood of the global technical community. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development and professional networking.

ACM encourages computing professionals to work side-by-side to advance computing as a science and a profession by publishing over 45 journals, organizing more than 150 conferences, offering 34 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and overseeing hundreds of local chapters.

 

ACM India Council members include:

Co-Chairs:

Dr. Anand Deshpande, Persistent Systems Ltd., Pune

P. J. Narayanan, IIIT Hyderabad

Members:

Sanjeev K. Aggarwal, Dept. of CSE, IIT Kanpur

P. Anandan, Microsoft Research India

M. Balakrishnan, IIT Delhi

Vivek Balaraman, Research and Development, Cognizant

Gayatri Buragohain, Feminist Approach to Technology, ACM-W India Ambassador

Partha Chakrabarti, IIT Kharagpur

Subu Goparaju, SETLabs, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Pankaj Jalote, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, IIIT Delhi

Mathai Joseph, Tata Consultancy Services and ACM Council

K. Ananth Krishnan, Tata Consultancy Services

Prithwis Mukerjee, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT, Kharagpur

Madhavan Mukund, Chennai Mathematical Institute

Girija Narlikar, Bell Labs, Mumbai

Srinivas Padmanabhuni, Chair, ACM Bangalore Chapter and SETLabs, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Krithi Ramamritham, IIT Bombay

S. Sadagopan, IIIT Bangalore

  

About ACM

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.