Festivus at ICAPS2005: Second Call for Participation

[Subbarao Kambhampati <rao@asu.edu>]

[I got several requests for participation--but am sure there
are more burining non-pc topics out there, and would really like to hear
from more. 
So, please don't self-censor the topics that come to your
mind.   --Rao .]


Festivus at ICAPS2005: Second Call for Participation

On  Thursday June 9th, just prior to the banquet (see
http://icaps05.icaps-conference.org/), we plan to have a Festivus (*) at
ICAPS. This is a type of "open mike" event designed to allow
participants to air controversial ideas and opinions about our field and
where it is going. About 7-8 speakers will be given 5 minutes each to
talk about what they think the field should be doing. The talk can be one
of the following flavors:

1. You are all doing the wrong research because...
2. You should all be really be working on...
3. If I see one more paper on XXX I am going to scream--because?
4. The "real" (TM) planning problems are...
5. We are stuck in a rut and the way to get out is...
6. The best thing that happened in planning is...

(others in a similar vein)

Each five minute slot will be followed by five minutes of questions from
the floor.

Ideally these talks should be broad, thoughtful, yet funny critiques,
that rock the boat and would keep people talking beyond the Festivus
session into the banquet itself.

This event will be coordinated by Subbarao Kambhampati (rao@asu.edu). The
coordinator's role will be to (a) solicit participation from the
community (b) select a subset (possibly in consultation with the PC
chairs) and (c) ensure that the proceedings are lively and
engaging.



Please note that we intend to balance the selected subset across
dimensions of "old/young"; "theoretical/applied" etc.
So, Ph.D. students with strong ideas about where the field should go are
very welcome to apply for participation.

If you are interested in speaking, please send a note to rao@asu.edu by
20th May 2005, giving a brief (one paragraph) description of what you
want to talk about. If you are selected, you will be notified by 30th
May.

--------
Footnote 1: According to Seinfeld
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus), the main part of Festivus is
the airing of grievances.

Footnote 2: An example of this type of session in the context of a
database conference can be found at:
http://www-db.cs.wisc.edu/cidr/program.html (look for "Gong
Show").