The 8th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies(CoNEXT) will take place from December 10 to December 13 2012 in Nice, France. CoNEXT is a highly selective (<20%), high-quality conference sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM). The conference is a major forum for presentation and discussion of novel networking protocols and technologies.
The proposal requests funds to partially support the travel of 10 US-based graduate students. The support amount will be $1,500 or the actual documented amount of expenses, whichever is less. Each student will need to cover expenses in excess of the fixed amount from other funds. Preference in the award of the travel grants will be given to students who have their work accepted to the CoNEXT student workshop which will take place the first day of the conference. Other criteria will include evidence of a serious interest in networking, as demonstrated by coursework and/or project experience.
Broader Impact: This project integrates research and education of students through exposure to a premier technical meeting in computer networks and communications. Students will have the opportunity to observe high-quality presentations and interact with senior researchers in the field both in the main conference and the associated workshops. The PI will especially encourage women and under-represented groups to participate.
Using NSF's funding to support student travel grants for the ACM Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (CoNEXT) allowed eight students from eight different US institutions to attend the 2012 conference in Nice, France, and two additional US students to attend the 2013 conference in Santa Barbara, CA, USA. (Note that a separate NSF grant covers travel grant support for the 2013 conference; we were able to accommodate two additional students mentioned here due to funds left over after 2012.) For the 2012 conference, each student received an average of USD 1600 toward their travel expenses. For the 2013 conference, the average amounted to USD 900 due to the shorter travel distance. Besides enabling conference attendance for the students, the grant also enabled close collaboration between each year's travel grant chairs, has helped solidify policies for covering US-based students with NSF funds (including booking of flights/hotels, minimum stays in the conference hotel, as well as the reimbursement process), and considerably reduced the onboarding overhead for future travel grant chairs due to the establisment of a "living document" outlining the key concerns and tasks for the newcomers. On behalf of the supported students we would like to thank NSF for their generous support.
