This is funding to provide financial support for approximately 20 graduate students (all from U. S. universities and working towards either their Master's degree or a Doctorate) to attend the 2017 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2017), to be held March 13-16 in Limassol, Cypress, about 10 of them as participants in a special Student Consortium (workshop), and the rest as presenters in the main conference and/or as attendees at the conference for general training purposes. Sponsored by ACM, the annual IUI conferences represent the growing interest in next-generation intelligent interactive user interfaces. Attracting 200-300 attendees, they are the premier forum where researchers from academia and industry worldwide who work at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) come together to exchange insights and to present outstanding research and applications whose goal is to make the computerized world a more amenable place. Unlike traditional AI the focus is not so much on making the computer smart all by itself, but rather on making the interaction between computers and people smarter; unlike traditional HCI, there is a focus on solutions that involve large amounts of knowledge and emerging technologies such as natural language understanding, brain computer interfaces, and gesture recognition. To this end, IUI encourages contributions not only from computer science but also from related fields such as psychology, behavioral science, cognitive science, computer graphics, design, the arts, etc. IUI 2017 will be the 22nd conference in the series; more information about the conference is available online at http://iui.acm.org/2017. This funding will enable attendance at the IUI conference by students who might otherwise be unable to do so for financial reasons. It will enhance the educational experience of funded participants, by bringing them into contact with leading researchers in the field and by exposing them to the lively discussion during the course of the conference that often leads to opportunities for career advancement. The quality of the conference itself will be enhanced as well, thanks to a broadening of the base of institutions represented and increased diversity of participants. The rich exchange of ideas at IUI has previously proven to be a valuable source of ideas for future research, as well as leading to collaborative efforts; this funding will extend the opportunities for collaboration and provide intellectual stimulus to programs that have previously sent few or no representatives to this conference. The organizing committee has undertaken to proactively recruit student participants from schools that have not traditionally been well represented in the IUI community. Women and students who are members of underrepresented groups will be particularly encouraged to participate. To further assure diversity, no more than two students will be accepted from any given institution.
The IUI 2017 Student Consortium will build on the success of previous such events. The heart of the Consortium will be a full-day workshop on March 13 in parallel with the conference workshops and the day before the start of the technical program. Student trainees will be afforded exposure to their new research community by giving a 20-30 presentation on their work and receiving feedback from peers and a panel of senior researchers. A group lunch and dinner will encourage social interaction among the student cohort and informal personal interaction with the mentors. The students' work will also be featured during the main conference in a poster session, where they will gain additional experience explaining their work to others in the field.
