<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-6ba48d2c-7fff-cb03-4f84-a4b6476220cd"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Call for Nominations: The 2021 ACM SIGAI Industry Award for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence</span></p><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span>[Apologie for Cross Posting, please distribute to your contacts!]</span></div><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The ACM SIGAI Industry Award for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be given annually to individuals or teams who have transferred original academic research into AI applications in recent years in ways that demonstrate the power of AI techniques via a combination of the following features: originality of the research novelty and technical excellence of the approach; importance of AI techniques to the approach; and actual or predicted societal impact of the application. Awardees receive a plaque accompanied by a prize of $5,000, and will be recognized at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence through an agreement with the IJCAI Board of Trustees.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">After decades of progress in the theory, research and development of AI, AI applications are increasingly moving into the commercial sector. A great deal of pioneering application-level work is being done by those transferring research results into industry—from startups to large corporations—and this is influencing commerce and the broad public in a wide variety of ways. This award complements the numerous academic, best-paper and related awards, in that it focuses on innovators of fielded AI applications. It is intended especially to recognize those who are not only active in the academic community, but also playing key roles in AI commercialization. The award honors these innovators and highlights their achievements (and thus the benefit of AI techniques) to computing professionals and the public at large. The award committee will consider applications that are open-source or proprietary and that may or may not involve hardware.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Evaluation Criteria: The criteria include the following, but there is no fixed weighting of them:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Novelty of application area</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Novelty and technical excellence of the approach</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Importance of AI techniques for the approach</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Actual and predicted societal benefits of the fielded application</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Eligibility Criteria: Any individual or team, worldwide, is eligible for the award.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">******************</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nomination Procedure:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">******************</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">One nomination and three endorsements must be submitted. The nomination must identify the individual or team members, describe their fielded AI system, and explain how it addresses the award criteria. The nomination must be written by a member of ACM SIGAI. Two of the endorsements must be from members of ACM or ACM SIGAI.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Please submit the nomination and endorsements as a single PDF file in an email to the chair of the committee, Craig Boutilier <<a href="mailto:cboutilier@google.com">cboutilier@google.com</a>>. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We will acknowledge receipt of the nomination.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">******************</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Timeline:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">******************</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nominations Due: March 15, 2021</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Award Announcement: April 25, 2021</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Award Presentation: Aug 21-26 at IJCAI 2021</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Award Call as a PDF: </span><a href="https://rebrand.ly/SIGAI-Industry-Award" style="text-decoration-line:none"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration-line:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://rebrand.ly/SIGAI-Industry-Award</span></a></p></span><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><b>Nicholas Mattei</b></div><div><font size="1">Assistant Professor, Tulane University</font></div><div><font size="1"><a href="mailto:nsmattei@tulane.edu" target="_blank">nsmattei@tulane.edu</a> | <a href="http://www.nickmattei.net/" target="_blank">www.nickmattei.net</a></font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="1">Stanley Thomas Hall | 402B</font></div><div><font size="1">+1 504 862 8391</font></div><div><font size="1">Department of Computer Science</font></div><div><font size="1">Tulane University</font></div><div><font size="1">6823 St Charles Ave</font></div><div><font size="1">New Orleans, LA 70118</font></div></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>