About our initiatives for the Multimedia community
Dear SIGMM members, colleagues, students,
The world is changing rapidly, and technology is driving these changes at an unprecedented pace. In this scenario, multimedia has become ubiquitous, providing new services to users, advanced modalities for information transmission, processing, and management, as well as innovative solutions for digital content understanding and production. The progress of Artificial Intelligence has fueled new opportunities and vitality in the field. New media formats, such as 3D, event data, and other sensory inputs, have become popular. Cutting-edge applications are constantly being developed and introduced.
We believed that these changes should be reflected in our SIGMM flagship conference, ACM Multimedia and the SIGMM organization and activities overall. This belief led us to organize the SIGMM Retreat in coincidence with ACM MM23 in Ottawa on October 30, 2023. The goal of the meeting was opening a discussion on key strategic issues such as the coverage of ACM Multimedia, its quality and reputation and how we can grow the SIGMM community. We invited the members of the SIGMM Advisory Committee, the members of the Steering Committees of the SIGMM-sponsored conferences, the ACM TOMM Editor in Chief, the past SIGMM Chairs, and senior personalities and emerging researchers of our community. The Retreat was well attended. Twenty people attended in-person. Ten attended on-line. Alberto Del Bimbo, SIGMM Chair, chaired the Retreat with the assistance of Phoebe Chen, SIGMM Vice-chair and Xavier Alameda Pineda.
The discussion was vibrant and valued opinions and suggestions emerged. It was widely agreed that the distinctive feature of multimedia research is the combination and integration of various modalities to build end-to-end systems.
People agreed on the need to introduce significant changes in the format of our flagship conference to bring new attractiveness. High consensus received the ideas of giving more room to Brave New Ideas sections, having TED-like talks, and soliciting workshops on innovative topics and striving for their continuity. There was also consensus on revitalizing the program by including new emerging topics like Foundation Models, 3D, glass free interactivity, new networking platforms. All the attendees recognized the need to balance the traditional research areas of the ACM Multimedia program.
There was general agreement on using Open Access as the reviewing system for ACM Multimedia. It was recognized it improves the quality and transparency of the reviewing process, enhances respectability, empowers the reviewers to conduct serious reviews, and aligns ACM Multimedia to the top ranked conferences.
Other important topics of discussion included how to incentivize in-person attendance and discourage online participation to maximize the value of conferences, the collaboration and synchronization of SIGMM-sponsored conferences, and the need to make the transition between conference editions more seamless.
Recognizing the need for greater industry presence, also to offer internship opportunities for students and improve the attendance of younger generations, was identified as a key issue for improvement. All the attendees recognized the importance to exploit SIGMM Records and Social Media as a means to improve the sense of community and disseminate information.
Following our commitment to align words with actions, we decided to create Strike Teams focusing on the most strategic themes. These teams are composed of a few experienced colleagues who volunteered to define realistic strategies for the key issues, determine concrete actions, and help to implement them in the near future. Starting in January 2024, four strike teams are in operation, with members appointed for two years:
SIGMM Strike Team on Open Review to provide operational support on the implementation of Open Review, smoothly transferring the best practices and helping to provide new functions. Team members are: Xavier Alameda Pineda (Univ. Grenoble-Alpes) Coordinator, Marco Bertini (Univ. Firenze).
SIGMM Strike Team on Harmonization and Spread to integrate SIGMM Records and Social Media in the whole process of the ACM Multimedia organization, improve synchronization and harmonization between ACM Multimedia and other SIGMM Conferences, and strengthen the sense of community. Team members are: Miriam Redi (Wikimedia Foundation) Coordinator, Silvia Rossi (CWI), Irene Viola (CWI), Mylene Farias (Texas State Univ. and Univ. Brasilia), Ichiro Ide (Nagoya Univ), Pablo Cesar (CWI and TU Delft).
SIGMM Strike Team on Industry Engagement to improve the presence of industry at ACM Multimedia, launching new in-cooperation initiatives and establishing stable bi-directional links. Team members are: Touradj Ebrahimi (EPFL) Coordinator, Ali Begen (Ozyegin Univ), Balu Adsumilli (Google), Yong Rui (Lenovo) and ChangSheng Xu (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Strike Teamon ACMMM Format to innovate the ACM Multimedia program, aligning it with technological advancements and the emergence of new research areas, and igniting fresh and efficient means of disseminating research. Team members are: Arnold Smeulders (Univ. of Amsterdam) Coordinator, Alan Smeaton (Dublin City University), Tat Seng Chua (National University of Singapore), Changwen Chen (Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ.), Nicu Sebe (Univ. of Trento), Marcel Worring (Univ. of Amsterdam) and the Chairs of the next two ACMMM Conferences, Jianfei Cai (Monash Univ.) and Cathal Gurrin (Dublin City Univ.).
All the teams report to SIGMM Chair and the SIGMM Executive Committee and will work in close connection with the General Chairs and Program Chairs of the next ACM Multimedia editions.
I take this opportunity to thank again all those who participated in the SIGMM Retreat, and especially those who are committed to the Strike Teams. I sincerely hope that their work brings new ideas and vitality to our community and strengthens its visibility and reputation in the international scientific arena in the years to come.
The 20th International Conference on Content-based Multimedia Indexing (CBMI) was held exclusively as an in-person event in Orleans, France, on September 20-22, 2023. The conference was organized by the University of Orleans and received support from SIGMM. This edition marked a significant milestone as it was the first fully physical conference following the pandemic, providing a welcome opportunity for face-to-face interactions. The event drew a diverse and international audience, with participation from between 70 and 80 attendees representing 18 countries (12 Europeans, 4 Asians, 1 American and 1 African). Additionally, the conference included a European meeting (CHIST-ERA XAIface project) associated with the main event, which brought together approximately 15 individuals. Furthermore, several engineering students from the University of Orleans were invited to participate, allowing them to gain insights into cutting-edge multimedia research and exchange knowledge and ideas.
Program highlights
The conference was structured around two keynote presentations. The first keynote was presented by Prof. Alberto del Bimbo from the University of Florence, who spoke on the topic of “AI-Powered Personal Fashion Advising.” During his talk, Prof. Delbimbo discussed the key tasks and challenges related to using artificial intelligence in the fashion advisory field.
The closing keynote was delivered by Prof. Nicolas Hervé from the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (French National Audiovisual Archive). Prof. Hervé highlighted the research activities conducted at Ina and how they could be integrated into information systems and enhance the value of their collections. His presentation provided insights into the practical applications of their work.
Presentation of our keynote speakers.
In conjunction with the presentation of 18 papers across four regular paper sessions, the 2023 conference adhered to the established tradition of previous editions by incorporating special sessions. These special sessions were designed to delve into the practical applications of multimedia indexing within specific domains or distinctive settings. This approach allowed for a more focused and in-depth exploration of several topics, offering valuable insights and discussions beyond the regular paper sessions.
In the ongoing year, we received a substantial volume of submissions, culminating in the approval of six special sessions. These special sessions have collectively embraced a total of 25 accepted papers.
Cultural Heritage and Multimedia Content
Interactive Video Retrieval for Beginners (IVR4B)
Physical Models and AI in Image and in Multi-modality
Computational Memorability of Imagery
Cross-modal multimedia analysis and retrieval for well-being insights
Explainability in Multimedia Analysis (ExMA)
The coordination of these special sessions involved the collaborative efforts of multiple countries, including France, Austria, Ireland, Iceland, the UK, Romania, Japan, Norway, and Vietnam.
The special sessions encompassed a diverse range of multimedia topics, spanning from applications such as cultural heritage preservation and retrieval to machine learning, with a particular focus on facets like explainability and the utilization of physical models.
The conference program was complemented by a poster session composed of fourteen posters. The latter was followed by a demo session which comprised IVR4B video retrieval competition.
Participants at the poster session.Participants at the demo session.
The best paper of the conference was awarded EUR 500, generously sponsored by ACM SIGMM. The selection committee quickly found consensus to award the best paper award to Romain XU-DARME, Jenny Benois-Pineau, Romain Giot, Georges Quénot, Zakaria Chihani, Marie-Christine Rousset and Alexey Zhukov for their paper “On the stability, correctness, and plausibility of visual explanation methods based on feature importance”.
Social events
In addition to the two conference dinners organized by the conference committee, the participants had the opportunity to enjoy a guided tour through Orleans on their way to the first restaurant.
Participants enjoyed the first dinner after the guided tour
Among the social events organized during CBMI 2023, was the Music meets Science concert with the support of ACM SIGMM. After a series of scientific presentations, participants were able to appreciate the works of Beethoven, Murphy and Lizee. We thank ACM SIGMM for their support which made this cultural event possible.
The Odyssée Quartet composed of François Pineau-Benois (violinist), Raphael Moraly (cellist), Olivier Marin (violist) and Audrey Sproule (violinist).
Outlook
The next edition of CBMI will be organized in Iceland. After several hybrid editions, we moved back on site towards the pre-pandemic level.
The 14th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys 2023) took place from June 7-10, 2023 in Vancouver, Canada. To continue the significant efforts from the last years, and building on the strong commitment of the MMSys community to create a diverse, inclusive and accessible forum to discuss advancements in the area of multimedia systems and the technology experiences they enable, several EDI measures were adopted. The main goals were to (1) raise awareness around the importance of diversity and inclusion for both the MMSys community and the research fields represented at MMSys and (2) to enable diverse participation and inclusion of underrepresented groups. In this column, we provide a brief overview of the main EDI activities and a number of key numbers, as well as short testimonials from two participants.
Support and activities
Associate Professor Yvette Wohn giving her EDI keynote on “Moderating the Metaverse”
1. EDI Keynote Speech We invited Dr. Yvette Wohn for a keynote speech on Moderating the Metaverse. Dr. Wohn (she/her) is an associate professor of Informatics at New Jersey Institute of Technology and director of the Social Interaction Lab . Her research is in the area of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) where she studies the characteristics and consequences of social interactions in online environments such as virtual worlds and social media. Yvette’s keynote speech was very well received and ignited conversations during the conference. Abstract of the talk: Online harassment is a problem that we still have been unable to solve in the social media age of Web 2.0. As we move deeper into Web 3.0, which includes 3D virtual worlds, moderation moves beyond content to include behavioral components such as embodied interactions. How do we design these systems to be creative and generative while maintaining safety and equity? This talk will discuss the challenges and opportunities, both social and technical, in creating the next wave of networked multimedia systems.
2. EDI Luncheon & Challenge Our goal for the luncheon and challenge was picking a topic to spark conversations during lunch that is engaging enough for all audience, is something that everyone can have some opinion on (and those opinions can be challenged during conversations), and the answers can provide us some insight about our audience and their take on EDIJ issues. The questions were:
What is the biggest diversity issue that you think can affect YOU in the metaverse?
What is the simplest, yet most practical solution you can think for this problem?
After the initial announcement and presentation, example scenarios and conversation icebreakers were printed and placed on the Break and Lunch tables and conversations were encouraged by volunteers, so that attendees would discuss over lunch, and submit their solution. The Rubric used for selecting the winner of this challenge was:
Problem (15 pts): Explorative Value, Importance, Scale of effect
Each item was rated on the scale of 0-5: not meeting requirements: 0, minimal: 1, acceptable: 2, good: 3, very good: 4, excellent: 5.
We received 14 entries by the given deadline, and from two entries with 28 points, Dr. Sylvie Dijkstra-Soudrissanane was selected as the winner of the EDI Challenge for discussing the inaccurate representation of dark skin tones due to the inherent design of 3D capture devices such as LIDARs in her response. Sylvie’s wrote a short testimonial (see below).
3. Additional EDI Activities EDI Considerations in Conference Name Tags Preferred pronouns were used to foster a healthier and more inclusive space, safe and respectful for all attendees. In addition, the following was explicitly mentioned on the name tags:
Diversity Advocate: To show we are proud of diversity and inclusion efforts, and we acknowledge and foster the enthusiasm for this important work.
First-Timer: To easily find people who might not be familiar with the community to provide them further help and support, if needed.
Childcare Support Due to financial uncertainty, we were not able to announce availability of childcare support funds before the conference which could help better planning for people with children and ensuring that we support all people with such need equally. However, we were nevertheless able to support a presenter who had planned childcare during the conference. Towards next year’s edition of MMSys, we strongly encourage that dedicated funds are made available well ahead of the conference, so that equal opportunities to attend can be offered to caregivers.
EDI volunteer support While most of our student volunteers were Vancouver-based and were supported with a free registration to the conference, one additional student volunteers who travelled to Vancouver and would otherwise not have been able to attend, was supported by the EDI chairs. His testimonial can be read below.
Key numbers
Two out of Four Keynote Speakers for MMSys 2023 were Women (50%)
One out of Three Technical Program Chairs were Women (33%)
Nine out of 25 organizing committee members were Women (36%)
Four out of Fourteen (seventeen including parallel sessions) sessions of the main conference were chaired by Women (24%), and three out of four Workshop chairs were Women (75%).
Jinwei Zhao’s badge, illustrating several measures to make attendees feel welcome and included (e.g., showing self-selected preferred pronouns, diversity advocate, first time at MMSys indication, such that other attendees can make sure that new people to the conference are warmly welcomed and included).
Testimonials
Testimonial by Jinwei Zhao, Student Volunteer supported by the MMSys 2023 EDI
“I was honored to be able to attend ACM MMSys 2023 in Vancouver as a student volunteer, an experience that afforded me a breadth of professional engagements. My responsibilities as a student volunteer encompassed assisting with the registration process and the assistance of technical sessions and workshops, thereby ensuring a seamless execution of the conference. It also gave me the invaluable opportunity to engage with distinguished researchers and talented PhD students in the multimedia community, facilitating a rich exchange of brilliant and novel ideas. The keynotes and technical sessions at the conference shed light on cutting-edge developments and emerging trends in the field of multimedia systems. These included advanced adaptive video bitrate algorithms, the integration of multimedia systems with next-generation networks like Starlink, the development of new protocols such as multipath QUIC and Media-Over-QUIC, and the future of immersive technologies in AR, VR, and XR domains. Additionally, I was deeply appreciative of receiving the ACM SIGMM MMSys Volunteer Honorarium after the conference. Although I did not have the occasion to present my research at MMSys 2023, the passion and dedication of my peers served as a catalyst for my further contributions to the field. This engagement was evidently fruitful and advantageous, as it led to the acceptance of my paper for presentation at MMSys 2024 next year. This experience also encouraged me to make further contributions more actively to the multimedia community, aligning with my decision to embark on a PhD program starting in 2024.»
«I had the privilege of attending the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys) in June 2023, an experience that left an incredible mark on my perspective as a scientist in the field of Social XR. The conference, held in the city of Vancouver, Canada, provided a unique platform for professionals from diverse backgrounds to converge and share cutting-edge insights in multimedia systems research and development. The MMSys conference proved to be an invaluable forum for hosting discussions on the latest advancements in multimedia technology. Keynotes and regular sessions covered a myriad of topics, ranging from advanced videos with 3D point clouds rendering, to multi-modal experiences and open software. This year, the rich program also included technical demo sessions, allowing participants to witness real-time systems in action, presented by leaders from organizations such as Xiaomi, Fraunhofer FOKUS, and my company TNO. Beyond the academic world, the conference facilitated networking and social interactions, providing a platform to connect with like-minded researchers. Engaging in discussions about user-interactive VR experiences, real-time holographic representations, and mobile-based deep learning video codecs … all happening in a breathtaking skyride above the Grouse Mountain added an extra layer of depth to the overall experience. One of the highlights of my participation was the opportunity to pitch my idea on building socially responsible systems that prioritize inclusivity. The focus of my proposal revolved around designing systems that are inherently inclusive, considering factors such as skin tones, hair types, and ethnicities. The aim was to bridge the accessibility gap and ensure that these systems reach and cater to minority populations. It is a very personal endeavor, as a person of color. To my delight, this endeavor earned me recognition with a prestigious award in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I am immensely proud to have received the DEI award offered by Dr Ouldooz Baghban Karimi for my commitment to inclusive research and innovation. This recognition reinforces the importance of pushing boundaries in technology to create solutions that resonate with diverse communities. The conference not only expanded my knowledge but also allowed me to forge meaningful connections with fellow researchers who share a passion for advancing the frontiers of multimedia systems.”
This column showcases a series of video interviews shooted at ACM Multimedia 2022. Social media editors in chief (i.e., Silvia Rossi and Conor Keighrey) of the records interviewed the authors behind some of the most intriguing and compelling demos and artistic interactive artworks. Silvia and Conor have started this initiative and will continue, when possible, at conferences supported by SIGMM.
ACM Multimedia is the premier international conference in the area of multimedia within the field of computer science. As in every edition of ACM MM, the conference once again played host to riveting demonstrations and interactive showcases of the latest research concepts. These sessions serve a dual purpose: they stand as a testament to the presenters’ invaluable scientific and engineering contributions while also providing a unique opportunity for multimedia researchers and practitioners to delve into real-world applications, prototypes, and proofs-of-concept.
This dynamic setting is where conference attendees come face-to-face with groundbreaking multimedia systems. It’s a chance for them to gain insights into the innovative solutions and ideas that are actively shaping the future of this ever-evolving field. From visionary demonstrations of emerging technologies to interactive showcases that push the boundaries of creativity, these sessions are at the heart of what makes ACM MM a unique event in the world of multimedia.
Below is the list of video interviews with references to the corresponding authors and papers.
Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet Sola. 2022. Dream Painter: An Interactive Art Installation Bridging Audience Interaction, Robotics, and Creative AI. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 7235–7236. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3549976
Jorge Forero, Gilberto Bernardes, and Mónica Mendes. 2022. Emotional Machines: Toward Affective Virtual Environments. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 7237–7238. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3549973
Ignacio Reimat, Yanni Mei, Evangelos Alexiou, Jack Jansen, Jie Li, Shishir Subramanyam, Irene Viola, Johan Oomen, and Pablo Cesar. 2022. Mediascape XR: A Cultural Heritage Experience in Social VR. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 6955–6957. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3547732
Manuel Silva, Luana Santos, Luís Teixeira, and José Vasco Carvalho. 2022. All is Noise: In Search of Enlightenment, a VR Experience. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 7223–7224. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3549958
Pin-Xuan Liu, Tse-Yu Pan, Hsin-Shih Lin, Hung-Kuo Chu, and Min-Chun Hu. 2022. BetterSight: Immersive Vision Training for Basketball Players. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 6979–6981. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3547745
Tiago Fornelos, Pedro Valente, Rafael Ferreira, Diogo Tavares, Diogo Silva, David Semedo, Joao Magalhaes, and Nuno Correia. 2022. A Conversational Shopping Assistant for Online Virtual Stores. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 6994–6996. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3547738
Ting-Yang Kao, Tse-Yu Pan, Chen-Ni Chen, Tsung-Hsun Tsai, Hung-Kuo Chu, and Min-Chun Hu. 2022. ScoreActuary: Hoop-Centric Trajectory-Aware Network for Fine-Grained Basketball Shot Analysis. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 6991–6993. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3547736
Maria Giovanna Donadio, Filippo Principi, Andrea Ferracani, Marco Bertini, and Alberto Del Bimbo. 2022. Engaging Museum Visitors with Gamification of Body and Facial Expressions. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 7000–7002. https://doi.org/10.1145/3503161.3547744
The 14th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (with the associated workshops: NOSSDAV 2023, MMVE 2023, and the first edition of GMSys 2023) took place from 7th – 10th June 2023 in Vancouver, Canada. The MMSys conference brings together researchers in multimedia systems to showcase and exchange their cutting-edge research findings. Once again, there were technical talks spanning various multimedia domains and inspiring keynote presentations. Participants had also the opportunity to further interact with colleagues while enjoying the sunset with a 360° view of Vancouver on the Lookout tower or during a dinner in the core of the rainforest. Additionally, this year’s event included a special session dedicated to the memory of Dr. Kuan-Ta Chen, to honor his invaluable contributions to the multimedia community and to inspire the future generation of researches.
To encourage junior researchers to participate on-site, SIGMM has sponsored a group of students with Student Travel Grant Awards. For many of them, this was their first time presenting at an international conference, and it was a wonderful experience. In this article, the recipients of the travel grants share their experiences at MMSys 2023.
Mike Vandersanden, PhD student from Hasselt University, Belgium
As a new PhD student starting my professional academic career less than a year before MMSys ’23, I focused on finding my place in the academic community. My advisor and colleagues encouraged me to achieve two goals: get feedback on my research and build a network. I submitted my first paper and it got accepted for the Doctoral Symposium at the conference, which was a great opportunity to work towards achieving my goals. Presenting my paper allowed me to receive helpful feedback, have interesting discussions, and gain new perspectives. It was motivating to see people interested in my work. During the rest of the conference, I connected with many attendees from different parts of the world. The social events were a great way to meet others, and we also had enjoyable evenings downtown. Upon returning home, I was happy to report to my advisor that I accomplished all my goals for the first year. I am grateful for receiving a student travel grant, as it made it easier to travel to another continent. It also gave me the freedom to manage my budget and increases my chances of attending the conference again next year.
May Lim, PhD student from National University of Singapore, Singapore
I was both excited and nervous for MMSys 2023 as it was not only my first in-person conference but also in a country I had never visited before. The conference turned out to be one of the most unforgettable and pleasant experience I ever had. It was well-organized with very insightful presentations, many opportunities to interact and exchange contacts with fellow researchers, and not forgetting the organizers’ thoughtful efforts to ensure the great comfort and welfare of the participants. Vancouver’s weather and people were very kind as well.
I am thankful for the travel grant and the support from ACM SIGMM was truly heartening. I hope to continue to be part of this community and pay it forward in other ways.
Tiago Soares da Costa, PhD student from FEUP, Portugal
MMSys 2023 marked my return to in-person conferences and was one of the most well organized conferences I had the pleasure to participate in. After several virtual conferences, being able to actively meet and discuss interesting topics related to multimedia with fellow researchers was a breath of fresh air. The keynote presentation from Klara Nahrstedt was one of my highlights from MMSys 2023, due to its extensive focus on multi-view streaming, one of the main topics from my PhD research. Ihab Amer was another welcome surprise, presenting us with the current trends in AI encoding from one of the leading tech enterprises, AMD. Regarding paper presentations, I have to highlight the following works: 1) “The AD△ER Framework: Tools for Event Video Representations“, for providing us with a new approach to frameless videos; 2) “Remote Expert Assistance System for Mixed-HMD Clients over 5G Infrastructure” for delivering an impressive tech demonstration; 3) “FleXR: A System Enabling Flexibly Distributed Extended Reality“, for presenting us with a distributed stream processing solution which can be effectively applied to XR-based environments. As for the social events from MMSys 2023, the sights and sounds from Grouse Mountain and the impressive view from the Vancouver Lookout Tower were among some of my favourite moments in Vancouver, that I will forever cherish. Overall, MMSys 2023 was an amazing conference and I’m particularly grateful to the SIGMM committee for providing me with the travel grant.
Yu-Szu Wei from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
It is a great honor for me to receive the student travel grant and I appreciate it so much. ACM MMsys 2023 is my first in-person experience attending an international conference, it certainly is a fantastic experience for me. I met lots of astonishing researchers and volunteers who solve problems with different, creative, and novel approaches. I exchanged my ideas with them and learned a lot from them. The keynote sessions also gave me brand-new mindsets, finding out that there are lots of issues for us to investigate and deal with. The most impressive thing for me is to stand on the stage and present my work to those experts. I’m so proud of myself for delivering my research ideas in front of the public and gaining abundant feedback from the audience.
Thanks to the committee that organized this awesome event, and provided me the travel grant to attend the conference. I’m looking forward to attending ACM MMSys again in the future.
ACM SIGMM co-sponsored the Spring School on Social XR, organized by the Distributed and Interactive Systems group (DIS) at CWI in Amsterdam. The event took place on March 13th – 17th 2023 and attracted 33 students from different disciplines (technology, social sciences, and humanities). The program included 18 lectures, 4 of them open, by 20 instructors. The event was co-sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Multimedia ACM SIGMM, making available student grants, and The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (https://www.beeldengeluid.nl/en). The event was part of the recently started research semester programmes of CWI.
Students and organisers of the Spring School on Social XR (March 13th – 17th 2023, Amsterdam)
“The future of media communication is immersive, and will empower sectors such as cultural heritage, education, manufacturing, and provide a climate-neutral alternative to travelling in the European Green Deal”. With such a vision in mind, the organization committee created a holistic program around the research topic of Social XR. The program included keynotes and workshops, where prominent scientists in the field shared their knowledge with students and triggered meaningful conversations and exchanges.
The program included topics such as the capturing and modelling of realistic avatars and their behavior, coding and transmission techniques of volumetric video content, ethics for the design and development of responsible social XR experiences, novel rending and interaction paradigms, and human factors and evaluation of experiences. Together, they provided a holistic perspective, helping participants to better understand the area and to initiate a network of collaboration to overcome current limitations of current real-time conferencing systems.
Apart from science, there is always time for fun, so a number of social events took place, including a visit to the recently renovated Museum of Sound and Vision!
Museum of Sound and Vision
The spring school is part of the semester program organized by the DIS group of CWI, which was initiated in May 2022 with the Symposium on human-centered multimedia systems: a workshop and seminar to celebrate the inaugural lecture, “Human-Centered Multimedia: Making Remote Togetherness Possible” of Prof. Pablo Cesar.
ACM Multimedia 2022 was held in a hybrid format in Lisbon, Portugal from October 10-14, 2022.
This was the first local participation in three years for many participants, as the strict travel restrictions associated with Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 made it difficult to participate locally by travelling out of the host and neighbouring countries.
In Portugal, the Covid-19 restrictions were almost lifted, and the city was bustling with tourists. Participants were careful to avoid infectious diseases and enjoyed Lisbon’s local wine “Vinho Verde” and cod dishes with their colleagues and engaged in lively discussions about multimedia research.
For many students, this was their first time presenting at an international conference, and it was a wonderful experience.
To encourage student authors to participate on-site, SIGMM has sponsored a group of students with Student Travel Grant Awards. Students who wanted to apply for this travel grant needed to submit an online form before the submission deadline. The selected students received either 1,000 or 2,000 USD to cover their airline tickets as well as accommodation costs for this event. Of the recipients, 25 were able to attend the conference. We asked them to share their unique experience attending ACM Multimedia 2022. In this article, we share their reports of the event.
Xiangming Gu, PhD student, National University of Singapore, Singapore
It is a great honour to receive a SIGMM Student Grant. ACM Multimedia 2022 is my first time attending an academic conference physically. During the conference, I presented my oral paper “MM-ALT: Multimodal Automatic Lyric Transcription”, which was also selected as “Top Rated Papers”. Besides the presentation, I also met a lot of people who shared similar research interests. It was very inspiring to learn from others’ papers and discuss them with the authors directly. Moreover, I was also a volunteer for ACM Multimedia 2022 and attended the session of the 5th International ACM Workshop on Multimedia Content Analysis in Sports. During the session, I learnt how to organize a workshop, which was a great exercise for me. Now, after I come back to Singapore, I still miss the conference. I wish I can get my paper accepted next year and attend the conference again.
Avinash Madasu, Computer Science Master’s student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA.
It is my absolute honour to receive the student travel grant for attending the ACM Multimedia 2022 conference. This is the first time I have attended a top AI conference in-person. I enjoyed it a lot during the conference and I was sad that the conference ended quickly. Within the conference days, I was able to attend a lot of oral sessions, keynote talks and poster sessions. I was able to interact with fellow researchers from both academia and industry. I learnt a lot about exciting research going on in my area of interest as well as other areas. It provided a new refreshing experience and I hope to bring this to my research. I presented a poster and felt happy when fellow researchers appreciated my work. Apart from technical details, I was able to forge a lot of new friendships which I truly cherish for my whole life.
Moreno La Quatra, PhD student, Politecnico di Torino
The ACM Multimedia 2022 conference was an amazing experience. After a few years of remote conferences, it was a pleasure to be able to attend the conference in person. I got the opportunity to meet many researchers of different seniorities and backgrounds, and I learned a lot from them. The poster sessions were one of the highlights of the conference. They were a very valuable opportunity to present interesting ideas and explore the details of other researchers’ work. I found the keynotes, presentations, and workshops to be very inspiring and engaging as well. Throughout them, I learned about specific topics and interacted with friendly, passionate researchers from around the world. I would like to thank the ACM Multimedia 2022 organization for the opportunity to attend the conference in Lisbon, all the other volunteers for their friendly and helpful attitude, and the SIGMM Student Travel Grant committee for the financial support.
Sheng-Ming Tang, Master student, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
My name is Sheng-Ming Tang from National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. It is a great honour for me to receive the student travel grant. First, I want to thank the committee for organizing this fantastic event. As ACM MM 2022 is my first in-person experience presenting at a conference, I felt a little bit nervous in the first place. However, I started to get comfortable in the conference through the interaction of those astonishing researchers and the volunteers. It was great to not only present in front of the public but also participate in the events. I met a lot of people who solved problems with different and creative approaches, learned brand-new mindsets from the keynote sessions, and gained abundant feedback from the audience, which would boost my research. Thank the committee again for giving me this greatest opportunity to present and share my work in person. I enjoyed a lot during the event.
Tai-Chen Tsai, Graduate student, National Tsing Hua University Taiwan
First, I would like to thank ACM for providing a student travel grant that allowed me to attend the conference. This is my first time presenting my work at a conference. The conference I attended was the interactive art session. I was worried that the setup would be complicated abroad. However, as soon as I arrived at the site, volunteers assisted me with the installation. The conference provided complete hardware resources, allowing me to have a smooth and excellent exhibition experience. Also, I took the opportunity to see many interesting researchers from different countries. The work “Emotional Machines” in the interactive art exhibition surprised me. His system collects and combines what participants are saying and their current emotions. The data is transformed into 360-degree image content in the VR environment through the model so that everyone’s information forms a small universe in the VR environment. The idea is creative. Additionally, I can chat and discuss projects with published researchers while volunteering at workshops. They shared their lifestyle and work experiences as researchers in European countries, and we discussed what interesting study is and what is not. This is the best reward for me.
Bhalaji Nagarajan, PhD Student, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
ACM-Multimedia was the first big conference I was able to participate in person after two years of complete virtual participation. I presented my work both as oral and poster presentations at the Workshop on Multimedia-Assisted Dietary Management (MADiMa). It gave me an excellent opportunity to present my work and to get valuable input from reputed pioneers regarding the future scope. It gave me a new dimension and helped in expanding my technical skill set. This was also my first volunteering experience on such a massive scale. It gave me a great learning experience to see and learn how to manage conferences of such a large scale. I am very happy that I attended the conference in person. I was able to meet new people, and reputed pioneers in the field, learn new things and of course, made some new friends. A big thank you for the SIGMM Travel Grant that allowed me to attend the conference in-person in Lisbon.
Kiruthika Kannan, MS by Research, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India.
My paper on “DrawMon: A Distributed System for Detection of Atypical Sketch Content in Concurrent Pictionary Games” was accepted at the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia. It was my first international conference, and I felt honoured to be able to present my research in front of experienced researchers. The conference also exhibited diverse research projects addressing fascinating scientific and technological problems. The poster sessions and talks at the conference improved my knowledge of the research trends in multimedia. In addition to this, I was able to interact with fellow researchers from diverse cultures. It was interesting to hear about their experiences and learn about their work at their institution. As a volunteer at the conference, I witnessed the hard work of the behind the scene organizers and volunteering team to smoothly run the events. I am grateful to the SIGMM Student Travel Grant for supporting my attendance at the ACMMM 22 conference.
Garima Sharma, PhD Student, Department of Human-Centred Computing, Monash University
It was a pleasure to receive a SIGMM travel grant and to attend the ACM Multimedia 2022 conference in person. ACM Multimedia is one of the top conferences in my research area and it was my first in-person conference during my PhD. I had a great experience interacting with numerous researchers and fellow PhD students. Along with all the interesting keynotes, I attended as many oral sessions as possible. Some of these sessions were aligned with my research work and some were outside of my work. This gave me a new research perspective at different levels. Also, working with organisers in a few sessions gave me a whole new experience in managing these events. Overall, I got many insightful comments, suggestions and feedback which motivated me with some interesting directions in my research work. I would like to thank the organisers for making this year’s ACM Multimedia a wonderful experience for every attendee.
Alon Harell, PhD student at the Multimedia Lab at Simon Fraser University
I had the pleasure to receive the SIGMM Student Travel Grant and to attend and volunteer at ACM Multimedia 22 in Lisbon, Portugal. The work I submitted to the conference was done outside of my regular PhD research, and thus without this grant, I would have not been able to participate. The workshop at which I presented, ACM MM Sport 22, was incredibly eye-opening with many fantastic papers, great presentations, and above all great people with which I was able to exchange ideas, form bonds, and perhaps even create future collaborations. The main conference, which coincides more closely with my main research on image and video coding for machines, was just as good. With fascinating talks, some in person, and some virtual, I was exposed to many new ideas (or perhaps just new to me) and learned a great deal. I was also able to benefit from the generosity and experience of Prof. Chong Wah Ngo from Singapore Management University, during my PhD. Mentor lunch, who shared with me his thoughts on pursuing a career in academia. Overall, ACM Multimedia 22 was an especially unique experience because it was the first in-person conference I was able to attend since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and being back face-to-face with fellow researchers was a great pleasure.
Lorenzo Vaiani, Ph.D. student (1st year), Politecnico di Torino, Italy
ACM MM 2022 was my first in-person conference. Being able to present my works and discuss them with other participants in person was an incredible experience. I enjoyed every activity, from presentations and posters to workshops and demos. I received excellent feedback and new inspiration to continue my research. The best part was definitely strengthening the bonds with friends I already knew and making more with the amazing people I met there. I learned a lot from all of them. Volunteer activities helped a lot in making these kinds of connections. Thanks to the organizers for this fantastic opportunity and the SIGMM Student Travel Grant committee for the financial support. This edition of ACM MM was just the first for me, but I hope for many more in the future.
Xiaoyu Lin, third-year PhD student at Inria Grenoble, France
It is a great honour to attend ACM MM 2022 in Lisbon. It was a great experience. I have met lots of nice professors and researchers. Discussing with them gave me lots of inspiration on both research directions and career development. I presented my work during the doctoral symposium. I’ve got plenty of useful feedback which can help me to improve our work. During the “Ask Me Anything” lunch, I have the chance to discuss with several senior researchers. They provide me with some kind and very useful advice on how to do research. Besides, I have also served as a volunteer for a workshop. It also helped me to meet other volunteers and made some new friends. Thanks to all the chairs and organizers who have worked hard to make ACM MM 2022 such a wonderful conference. It’s really an impressive experience!
I would like to thank the ACM Multimedia Committee provided me with the student travel grant so that I can attend the conference in person. ACM Multimedia is the worldwide top conference in the Multimedia field. It provides me with an opportunity to present my work and communicate with the researchers working on this topic of multimedia search. Besides, the excellent keynotes and passionate panel talk also picture a good vision of future research in the multimedia field. Overall, I must express that ACM MM22 is amazing and well-organized. I again appreciate the ACM MM committee for the student travel grant, which made my attendance possible.
Nitish Nagesh (@nitish_nagesh) is a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science department, the University of California, Irvine, USA. He has been awarded as Best Social Media Reporter of ACM Multimedia 2022 conference. To celebrate this award, Nitish Nagesh reported on his wonderful experience at ACM Multimedia 2022 as follows.
I was excited when our paper “World Food Atlas for Food Navigation” was accepted to the Multimedia Assisted Dietary Management Workshop (MADiMA). Being held in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2022, the premier multimedia conference was the icing on the cake. It being in Lisbon, Portugal was the cherry on top of the cake. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is fitting to describe a multimedia conference experience report through pictures.
Prof. Ramesh Jain organized an informal meetup at the Choupana Caffe based on the advice of Joao Magalhaes, general chair of ACMMM 2022. It was great to meet researchers working on food computing including Prof. Yoko Yamakata, Prof. Agnieszka, Maija Kale. It was great to also have the company of students and professors from Singapore Management University including Prof. Chong Wah along with Prof. Phoebe Chen. Since this was the first in-person conference for many folks, we had great conversations over waffles, pear salad and watermelon mint juice!
The MADiMA workshop and the Cooking and Eating Activities (CEA) workshop had stellar keynote speakers and presentations about topics ranging from adherence to a mediterranean diet to mental health estimation through food images.
The workshop was at the Lisbon Congress Center. It was a treat to watch the sun shine brightly on the congress center in the morning and the mellow sunset only a few minutes away near the Tagus Estuary rendering an orangish hue to the red bridge overlooking the train tracks below.
After a great set of presentations, the MADIMA and CEA workshop was drawn to a close with a group picture, of one large family of people who love food and want to help people enjoy food while maintaining their health goals. A huge shout out to the workshop chairs Prof. Stavroula Mougiakakou, Prof. Keiji Yanai, Prof. Dario Allegra and Prof. Yoko Yamakata. (I tried my best to include a photo where everyone looks good!)
All work and no play makes us dull people! And all research with no food makes us hungry people! We had a post-workshop dinner at an authentic Portuguese restaurant. The food was great and it was a delightful evening because of the surprise treat from the professors!
Prof. Jain’s Ph.D. talk was inspiring as he shared his personal journey that led him to focus on healthcare. He urged students in the multimedia community to pursue multimodal healthcare research as he shared his insights on building a personal health navigator.
I had signed up to be a mentee for the Ph.D. school Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. We asked Prof. Ming Dong questions about his time at graduate school, balancing teaching and research responsibilities, tips on maximizing research output and strategies to cope with rejections. He was candid in his responses and emphasized the need to focus on incremental progress while striving to do impactful research. I must thank Prof. Wei Tsang and other organizers for their leadership in organizing a first-of-its-kind session.
In between running around oral sessions, poster presentations, keynote talks, networking, grabbing lunch, and enjoying Portuguese Tart, we managed to have fun while volunteering. Huge credit to the students and staff (the Rafael’s, the Diogo’s, the David’s, the Gustavo’s, the Pedro’s) from Nova university for doing the heavy lifting to ensure a smooth online, hybrid and in-person experience!
It was a pleasure to watch Prof. Alan Smeaton deliver an inspiring speech about the journey of information retrieval and multimedia. The community congratulates you once again on the Technical Achievement Award – more power to you, Alan!
The highlight of the conference was the grand banquet at Centro Cultural de Belém. There could not have been a better climax to the gala event than the Fado music. One aspect of Fado music symbolizes longing where the spouse sings a melancholy when her partner sets sail on long voyages. It is accompanied by the unique 12 string guitar and is sung very close to the audience to heighten the intimacy. I could fully relate to the artists’ melody and rhythms since I had been longing to see my family and friends back home, whom I have not visited for the past three years due to the pandemic. Another tune described the beauty of Lisbon in superlatives including the sun shining the brightest compared to any other part of the world. There was a happy ending to the tune when the artists recreated the moment of joy after the war was over and everyone was merry again. It reinvigorated a fresh hope and breathed a new lease of life into our cluttered worlds. For once, I was truly present in the moment!
The 19th International Conference on Content-based Multimedia Indexing (CBMI) took place as a hybrid conference in Graz, Austria, from September 14-16, 2022, organized by JOANNEUM RESEARCH and supported by SIGMM. After the 2020 edition was postponed and held as a fully online conference in 2021, this was an important step back to a physical conference. Probably still as an effect of the COVID pandemic, the event was a bit smaller than in previous years, with around 50 participants from 18 countries (13 European countries, the rest from Asia and North America). About 60% were attending on-site, the other via web conference.
Program highlights
The conference program included two keynotes. The opening keynote by Miriam Redi from Wikimedia analysed the role of multimedia assets in a free knowledge ecosystem such as the one around Wikipedia. The closing keynote by Efstratios Gavves from the University of Amsterdam showcased recent progress in machine learning of dynamic information and causality in a diverse range of application domains and highlighted open research challenges.
With the aim to increase the interaction between the scientific community and the users of multimedia indexing technologies, a panel session titled “Multimedia Indexing and Retrieval Challenges in Media Archives” was organised. The panel featured four distinguished experts from the audiovisual archive domain. Brecht Declerq from meemoo, the Flemish Institute for Archive, is currently the president of FIAT/IFTA, the International Association of TV Archives. Richard Wright started as a researcher in speech processing before he became a renowned expert in digital preservation, setting up a series of successful European projects in the area. Johan Oomen manages the department for Research and Heritage at Beeld en Geluid, the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision. Christoph Bauer is an expert from the Multimedia Archive of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF and consults archives of the Western Balkan countries on digitisation and preservation topics. The panel tried to analyse why only a small part of research outputs makes it into productive use at archives and identified research challenges such as the need for more semantic and contextualised content descriptions, the ability to easily control the amount vs. accuracy of generated metadata and the need for novel paradigms to interact with multimedia collections beyond the textual search box. At the same time, archives face the challenge of dealing with much richer metadata, but without the quality guarantees known from manually documented content.
Panel discussion with Richard Wright, Brecht Declerq, Christoph Bauer and Johan Oomen (online), moderated by Georg Thallinger.
In addition to five regular paper sessions (presenting 16 papers in total), the 2022 conference followed the tradition of previous editions of special sessions addressing the use of multimedia indexing in specific application areas or specific settings. This year the special sessions (nine papers in total) covered multimedia in clinical applications and for the protection against natural disasters as well as machine learning from multimedia in cases where data is scarce. The program was completed with a poster & demo session, featuring seven posters and two demos.
Participants enjoyed the return of face-to-face discussions at the poster and demo sessions.
The best paper and the best student paper of the conference were each awarded EUR 500, generously sponsored by SIGMM. The selection committee quickly found consensus to award the best paper award to Maria Eirini Pegia, Anastasia Moumtzidou, Ilias Gialampoukidis, Björn Þór Jónsson, Stefanos Vrochidis and Ioannis Kompatsiaris for their paper “BiasUNet: Learning Change Detection over Sentinel-2 Image Pairs”, and the best student paper award to Sara Sarto, Marcella Cornia, Lorenzo Baraldi and Rita Cucchiara for their paper “Retrieval-Augmented Transformer for Image Captioning”. The authors of the best papers were invited to submit an extended version to the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia journal.
Best student paper award for Sara Sarto, presented by Werner Bailer.
Best paper award for Maria Eirini Pegia and Björn Þór Jónsson, presented by Georges Quénot.
Handling the hybrid setting
As a platform for the online part of the conference, an online event using GoTo Webinar has been created. The aim was still to have all presentations and Q&A live, however, speakers were asked to provide a backup video of their talk (which was only used in one case). The poster and demo session was a particular challenge in the hybrid setting. In order to allow all participants to see the contributions in the best setting, all contributions were both presented as printed posters on-site and as a short video online. After discussions took place on-site in front of the posters and demos, a Q&A session connecting the conference room and the remote presenters took place to enable also discussions with the online presenters.
Social events
Getting back to at least hybrid conferences also means having the long missed opportunities to discuss and exchange with both well-known colleagues and first-time attendees during coffee breaks and over lunch and dinner. In addition to a conference dinner on the second evening, the government of the state of Styria, of which Graz is the capital, hosted a reception for the participants in the beautiful setting of the historic Orangerie in the gardens of Graz castle. The participants had the opportunity to enjoy a guided tour through Graz on their way to the reception.
Concert by François Pineau-Benois (violin), Olga Cepovecka (piano) and Dorottya Standi (cello).
A special event was the Music meets Science concert, with the support of SIGMM. This is already the fourth concert which has been presented in the framework of the CBMI conference (2007, 2018, 2021, 2022). After a long conference day, the participants could enjoy works by Schubert and Haydn, Austrian composers which gave an aspect of local Austrian culture to the event. Reflecting the international spirit of CBMI, the concert was given by a trio of very talented young musicians with international careers from three different countries. We thank SIGMM for its support which made this cultural event happen.
Matthias Rüther, director of JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL, welcomes the conference participants at the reception
Outlook
The next edition of CBMI will be organised in September 2023 in Orleans, France. While it is likely that the hybrid setting is here to stay for the near future, we hope that the share of participants on site will move back towards the pre-pandemic level.
The 13th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (and its associated workshops: MMVE 2022, NOSSDAV 2022, and GameSys 2022) took place from the 14th – 17th of June 2022 in Athlone, Ireland. The week after, the ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences took place in Aveiro, Portugal from the 22nd – 24th of June. Both conferences are strongly committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and accessible forum to discuss the latest research on multimedia systems and the technology experiences they enable and have been actively working towards this goal over the last number of years. While this is challenging in itself, demanding systematic and continuous efforts at various levels, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic introduced even more challenges. As it has repeatedly been coined (and shown), restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have had a significant impact on many scholars, such as female academics [1,2], caregivers [3], young scientists [4] and may have exacerbated existing inequalities [5], despite the increased participation possibilities introduced by fully online conferences. The diversity and inclusion chairs of both IMX and MMSys were therefore highly motivated to adopt a set of measures aimed at stimulating the inclusion of underrepresented groups, offering various possibilities for participation, and raising awareness of diversity (and implications of a lack of diversity) for community development and research activities.
SIGMM student travel grants: any student member of SIGMM is eligible to apply for such a grant, however, the students who are the first author of an accepted paper (in any track/workshop) are particularly encouraged to apply. The grants can cover any travel expenses such as airfare/shuttle, hotel and meals (but not conference registration fees).
SIGMM carer grants: the carer grants are intended to allow SIGMM members to fully engage with the online event or attend in person. These grants are intended to cover extra costs to help with caring responsibilities — for example, childcare at home or at the destination — which would otherwise limit your participation in the conference.
SIGMM-sponsored Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) travel grants: these grants aim to support researchers who self-identify as marginalized and/or underrepresented in the MMSys community (e.g., scholars who come from non-WEIRD – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Developed – societies). The EDI grants have also been used to support researchers who lack other/own funding opportunities, as well as scholars from relevant yet underrepresented research areas.
Paper mentoring: this instrument was primarily aimed at those who are new to submitting an academic paper. In particular, those in circumstances which are particularly adverse, like for example those for whom English is a second language or those who are authoring a particularly novel submission which may require additional input, could apply for paper mentoring.
In addition to the above measures, MMSys’22 also offered excellent mentoring activities for both PhD students and postdocs and more advanced researchers. The PhD mentoring was organized by the doctoral consortium chairs Patrick Le Callet and Carsten Griwodz and PhD students had the possibility to give a short pitch about their PhD research, have discussions with the MMSys’22 mentors and wider community, and have a 1 on 1 in-person talk with their assigned mentor. The postdoc mentoring was organized by Pablo Cesar and Irena Orsolic. Postdocs in the MMSys community were invited to give a lightning talk about their research and were invited to a dedicated networking lunch with other members of the MMSys community. IMX’ 22 on the other hand, featured an open application process for program committee membership and an active reasonable adjustment policy to ensure that registration fees are not preventing people from attending the conference. In addition, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early-career researchers could also apply for travel support from the SIGCHI Gary Marsden travel awards and PhD students could benefit from interaction with and feedback from peers and senior researchers in the Doctoral Consortium. Finally, both for MMSys and IMX, participants had to actively agree with the ACM Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment.
Activities at the conference
At the conference, additional activities were organized to raise awareness, increase understanding, foster experience sharing and especially also trigger reflection about diversity and inclusion. MMSys ’22 featured a panel on “Designing Inclusivity in Technologies“. Inclusive Design is an approach used in many sectors to try and allow everyone to experience our services and products in an equitable way. One of the ways we could do this is by celebrating diversity in how we design and take into account the different barriers faced by different communities across the globe. The panel brought together experts to discuss what inclusive design looks like for them, the charms of the communities they work with, the challenges they face in designing with and for them and how other communities can learn from the methods they have used in order to build a more inclusive world that benefits all of us. The panellists were:
Veronica Orvalho: Professor at Porto University’s Instituto de Telecomunicações and the Founder/CEO of Didimo – a platform that enables users to generate digital humans.
Nitesh Goyal: Leads research on Responsible AI tools at Google Research.
Kellie Morrissey: Researcher & Lecturer at the University of Limerick’s School of Design.
IMX ’22 featured a panel discussion on “Diversity in the Metaverse”. The Metaverse is a hot topic, which has many people wondering both what it is, and more importantly, what it will look like in the future for immersive media experiences. As a unique space for social interaction, engagement and connection, it’s essential that we address the importance of representation and accessibility during its time of infancy. The discussion intended not only to cover the current scenario in virtual and augmented reality worlds, but also the consequences and challenges of building a diverse Metaverse by taking into account design, content, marketing, and the various barriers faced by different communities across the globe.
The panel was moderated by Tara Collingwoode-Williams (Goldsmiths University) and had four panellists to discuss topics related to research and practice around “Diversity and Inclusive design in the Metaverse”:
Nina Salomons – (Filmmaker, diversity advocate and XR consultant, XRDI, AnomieXR co-founder UK – London)
Micaela Mantegna – (TED Fellow. Video Games Policy/Artificial intelligence, creativity & copyright Professor. AI, XR and Metaverse researcher. BKC Harvard Affiliate. Diversity & Inclusion advocate. Founder of Women In Games, Argentina – Greater Buenos Aires)
Krystal Cooper -( Unity : Emerging Products – Professional Artistry / Virtual production * Spatial Computing * XR researcher * , USA – LA)
Mmuso Mafisa – (XR consultant, Veza Interactive and Venture Chain Capital, SA – Johannesburg Metropolitan Area)
Short testimonials by two of the EDI grant beneficiaries
Soonbin Lee is a PhD student at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in Korea, who would not have been able to attend MMsys ’22 without the SIGMM support (due to a lack of other funding opportunities). Soonbin wrote a short testimonial.
“The conference consisted of the presentation of a keynote and regular sessions by various speakers. In particular, with the advent of cloud gaming, there are many presentations, including: streaming systems specialized in game videos; haptic media for realistic viewing; and humanoid robots that can empathize with humans. During the conference, I enjoyed the spectacular views of Ireland and the wonderful traditional cuisine that was included in the conference program. Along with the presentations during the regular sessions, demo sessions were also presented. Participants from the industry, including Qualcomm, Fraunhofer FOKUS, INRIA, and TNO, were engaged during the MMSys demo sessions. Being able to participate offered also an excellent opportunity to witness the outcomes of real-time systems, including user-interactive VR games, holographic cube matching instructions, and a mobile-based deep learning video codec decoding demo. I was also able to hear the presentations of various PhD research proposals, and it was very impressive to see many PhD students present their interesting research.
At the MMSys conference, there were also a number of social events, like Viking boat and beer-brewing in Ireland, so I was able to meet with other researchers and get to know them better. This was an amazing experience for me because it is not easy to meet the researchers in person. On the last day, I gave a presentation at the NOSSDAV session on the compression processing of MPEG Immersive Video (MIV). Through this discussion and the Q&A, I was able to learn more about the most recent trends in research. More importantly, I made many friends who studied with the same interests. I had a fantastic chance and a wonderful experience meeting other scholars in person. The MMSys Conference was a really impressive conference for me. With the travel grant, I fully enjoyed this opportunity!”
Postdoctoral researcher Alan Guedes also wrote a short reflection: “I am a researcher from the Brazilian multimedia community, especially concentrated at the WebMedia event (http://webmedia.org.br). Although my community is considerably large and active, it has little presence at ACM events. This lack prevents the visibility of our research and possible international collaboration. In 2022, I was honoured with ACM Diversity and Inclusion Travel Award to attend two ACM SIGMM-supported conferences, namely IMX and MMSys. The events had inspiring presentations and keynotes, which made me energetic about new research directions. Particularly, I had the chance to meet researchers that I only know by their citing names. At these events, I could present some research done in Brazil and collaborate on technical committees and workshops.
This networking was invaluable and will be essential in my research career. I was also happy to see other Brazilians that, like me, seek to engage and strengthen the bonds of SIGMM and Brazilian communities.”
Final reflections
Both at IMX and MMSys, there were various actions and initiatives to put EDI-related topics on the agenda and to foster diversity and inclusion, both at the community level and in terms of research-related activities. We believe that a key success factor in this respect is the fact that there are valuable support mechanisms offered by the ACM and SIGMM, allowing the IMX and MMSys communities to continuously and systematically have goals related to equality, diversity and inclusion on the agenda, e.g., by removing participation barriers (e.g., by having adjusted prices depending on the country of the attendees), triggering awareness, providing a forum for under-represented voices and/or regions (e.g., focused workshops at IMX focusing on Asia (2016, 2017), Latin America (2020), .., supported by the SIGCHI Development Fund).
Based on our experiences, it is also important that defined actions and measures are based on a good understanding of the key problems. This means that efforts to gain insights into key aspects (e.g., gender balance, numbers on the participation of under-represented groups, …) and developments over time are highly valuable. Secondly, it is important that EDI aspects are considered holistically, as they relate to all aspects of the conference, from the beginning until the end, including e.g., the selection of keynote speakers, the matter of who is represented in the technical committees (e.g., have an open call for associate chairs as has been done at IMX since the beginning), or who is represented in the organizing committee, which efforts are done to reach out to relevant communities in various parts of the world that are currently under-represented (e.g., South-America, Afrika,…). Lastly, we need more experience sharing through both formal and informal channels. There is a huge potential to share best practices and experiences both within and between the related conferences and communities to combine our efforts towards a common EDI vision and associated goals.
