ACM India Institutes Awards to Honour Early Career Researchers, Women and Educators in Computing

Pune:The India Council of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, announced the inception of three new annual awards to recognize contributions by young achievers and women, and contributions to the field of computing education, in addition to a previously instated doctoral dissertation award.

The India Council of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, announced the inception of three new annual awards to recognize contributions by young achievers and women, and contributions to the field of computing education, in addition to a previously instated doctoral dissertation award. The nomination process for these awards is underway and will conclude on 31st August 2020. The submission is via the online ACM India award nomination form. Timelines, eligibility and evaluation criteria can be accessed via the links to the respective award sites on the ACM India portal. An eminent international jury for each award will select the eventual winners.

The ACM India Early Career Researcher (ECR) award, to be presented to individuals in early stages of their careers, for outstanding contributions to computing while primarily working in India is sponsored by Persistent Foundation and accompanied by a prize of INR 15 lakhs. The award for ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman (OCCW) sponsored by Google, and the award for ACM India Outstanding Contribution to Computing Education (OCCE) sponsored by Microsoft Research India are accompanied by prizes worth INR 7 lakhs each. The OCCW award will recognize stellar contributions by women professionals to the computing field and to empowerment of women while based in India. The OCCE award will honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to computing education from India. In addition, to recognize outstanding achievements from the student community, ACM India has previously established in 2011 the ACM India Doctoral Dissertation Award (DDA). The DDA is sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services and accompanied by a prize worth INR 2 lakhs.

Prof. Jayant Haritsa, President of ACM India and faculty at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore said, “Through these awards we want to highlight and honor significant achievements in various computing spheres from India. While a plethora of awards in general engineering are already well established, these are the first computing-specific awards in India. We hope that they will act as inspiration to our computing practitioners and create international visibility for Indian contributions. Given the long-standing and organic strengths of India in the computing arena, we look forward to receiving worthy nominations for all the awards.”