<div dir="ltr"><h3>Call for Topic Area
Proposals</h3>
<h3>2016 Neuromorphic
Cognition Engineering Workshop</h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><i>Telluride, Colorado, June 26 –July 16, 2016</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><i><br></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b><font color="#ff0000">DEADLINE: January 8th, 2016</font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">We
are now accepting proposals for Topic Areas in the 2016 Telluride Neuromorphic
Cognition Engineering Workshop. We
support topics and projects in neuromorphic cognition, particularly those that
involve solving challenging ‘everyday’ tasks that incorporate domain-specific
knowledge, exploration, prediction, and problem solving. In particular, we are
interested in projects that hold promise for addressing Grand Challenge types
of problems that do not have strong solutions of any form, neuromorphic or
not. These Challenge problems should
feature long-duration sensorimotor problems that involve autonomous cognitive
decision making. Examples might include
tasks such as learning a new language, navigating through an unknown
environment to locate an object or reach a desired location, visual and auditory
understanding of human actions, adaptively manipulating unknown or complex
objects in the service of a task, playing a game requiring inference of hidden
information or long-term planning and learning, etc. Proposals related to
hardware technologies that aim to bring these capabilities to reality are also
encouraged. Topic proposals that aim to solve a particular problem using the
multidisciplinary experience of participants will be favored over topics that
simply gather a large number of people working within a discipline, or using a
single technology, or approach.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">Topic
areas for this summer's <a href="http://ine-web.org/"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,238)">Telluride
Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop</span></a> will be chosen from
proposals submitted to the organizers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Topic areas can span a large field; we are
looking for leadership in planning activities and inviting good people in a
field.</b> Although past topic areas have tended to be very broad and
discipline-oriented (e.g., cognition, audition, vision, robotics, neural
interfacing, neuromorphic VLSI, etc.), application-oriented topic areas (e.g.,
sensor fusion, game-playing robot, object recognition, sound localization,
human robot interaction, etc.) are especially desirable. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Topic area leaders will receive housing for
themselves and their invitees, and limited travel funds.</b> Topic area leaders
will help to define the field of neuromorphic cognition engineering through the
projects they pursue and the people they invite. They shape their topic by inviting speakers
and project leaders (the <b>invitees</b>)
and by initiating topic area project discussions prior to the workshop.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">Teams
of two organizers are required. One of the organizers should be an attendee of
a previous Telluride Workshop (in any capacity) and has stayed at the Workshop
for at least one week.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Pre-workshop topic area choices and study
assignments.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">Before
the workshop begins, each topic area will be required to prepare and distribute
study materials that constitute: 1) an introductory presentation (e.g., pptx,
video, review paper) of the fundamental knowledge associated with the topic
area that <i>everyone at the workshop</i>
should be exposed to, and 2) a few critical papers that the participants in the
topic area should read before the workshop. The topic area should 3) begin a
serious group discussion of the projects (e.g., via Facebook, Skype, email,
etc). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> <b>The maximum 2-page proposals should
include:</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">1.
Title of topic area.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">2.
Names of the two topic leaders, their affiliations, and contact information
(email</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> addresses).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">3.
A paragraph explaining the focus and goals of the topic area.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">4.
A list of possible specific topic area projects.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">5.
A list of example invitees (up to six names and institutions). No commitments
necessary.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">6.
Any other material that fits within the two-page limit that will help us make a
smart</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> choice.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Send your topic area proposal</b> in pdf or
text format to <a href="mailto:organizers12@neuromorphs.net"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,153)">organizers13@neuromorphs.net</span></a> with subject line
containing "topic area proposal".</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Proposals must be received by <span style="color:windowtext">January 8, 2016</span></b>; proposals received after
the deadline may still be considered if space is available.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>We expect to accept 4-5 topic areas</b>,
each with 5 invitees<b>.</b> If your
proposal for the topic area is not accepted, we will work with you to see if
there is a natural way to include your ideas (and you) into the accepted topic
areas. We hope to have significant turn-over each year in the topic areas and
leaders to ensure fresh new ideas and participants.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">See
the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering (<a href="http://www.ine-web.org/"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,238)">www.ine-web.org</span></a>) for background information on
the workshop and <a href="https://neuromorphs.net/ws2009/wiki/PastWorkshops"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,238)">neuromorphs.net</span></a> for past workshop wikis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt">We
look forward to your topic proposals!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Deadline: <span style="color:black">January 8, 2016</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>The Workshop Directors:</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><a href="http://www.cfar.umd.edu/~fer/">Cornelia Fermüller</a> (University of
Maryland), <a href="http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/people/ralph/index.html"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,238)">Ralph Etienne-Cummings</span></a> (Johns Hopkins Univ.) <a href="https://www.ini.uzh.ch/~shih/">Shih-Chii Liu</a> (University of Zurich
and ETH Zurich), <a href="https://www.isr.umd.edu/faculty/horiuchi">Timmer Horiuchi</a> (University of Maryland), <a href="http://physiological-sciences.arizona.edu/katalin-gothard">Katalin
Gotthard</a> (University of Arizona), <a href="https://www.ini.uzh.ch/~pfeiffer/index.html">Michael Pfeiffer</a>
(University of Zurich and ETH Zurich), <a href="mailto:fbarranco@ugr.es">Francisco
Barranco</a> (University of Granada)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><b>Former 2007-2013 Workshop Director: </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><a href="https://www.ini.uzh.ch/~tobi/">Tobi Delbruck</a> (University of Zurich
and ETH Zurich)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Ralph Etienne-Cummings, PhD, FIEEE<div>Professor and Chairman</div><div>Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering</div><div>Computational Sensor Motor Systems Lab</div><div>Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics</div><div>The Johns Hopkins University</div><div>Baltimore, MD</div><div><img src="cid:image001.png@01CFC064.B58B46A0" alt="cid:image001.png@01CFC064.B58B46A0"><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>
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