As we’ve previously blogged here, the CCC has sponsored three Challenges & Visions Sessions at computing research conferences over the past year, seeking to give time and attention to “wacky ideas” that may not otherwise make it through a conference’s normal reviewing process.  These sessions — run on an experimental basis, to assess their value to the conferences as well as the broader research community — have been quite successful in elevating promising visions and generating vigorous discussions.  Consequently, the CCC is announcing today a call for additional Challenges & Visions Sessions:

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is sponsoring an initiative to bring special “Challenges and Visions” tracks to leading computer science research conferences. The goal of this initiative is to help conferences reach out beyond the usual research papers that present completed work and to seek out papers that present ideas and visions that can stimulate the research community to pursue new directions.

Conferences may request CCC sponsorship of such tracks along with a CCC grant that provides for prize money for the top 3 papers (first prize $1000, second prize $750, and third prize $500, to be awarded as travel grants). (See below for details about selecting and awarding these prizes.)

Papers in a “Challenges and Visions” track should be open-ended, possibly “outrageous” or “wacky”, and present new problems, new application domains, or new methodologies that are likely to stimulate significant new research. The CCC is seeking papers (roughly 4 pages in length) so that the ideas can be referenced after the conference is over.

After the conference, the CCC will post links to the track papers on its Challenges and Visions web page (see ) and help disseminate these ideas broadly in the computer science research community.

Requests for CCC sponsorship should include information on the conference and a proposed list of program committee members for the track. We provide below a prototype call for papers and suggestions regarding the review process. Proposals should be sent to Erwin Gianchandani, the CCC Director, at erwin@cra.org.

For more information — including guidelines for conference program committees, recommendations for selecting winners, and logistics for issuing CCC-sponsored travel awards to the winners, as well as a sample call for papers for a CV session — visit http://cra.org/ccc/vct.php.

We encourage you to apply!  Requests need only include a brief description of the conference and a proposed list of program committee members for the track.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director, and Hank Korth, Lehigh University)