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IFIP

WORKING WITH IFIP

CSI has a diverse membership consisting of professionals, academicians, researchers and students. In recent years, the society has tried to reach out to more members and provide more value to existing members by hosting technical conferences and workshops at national, regional and local levels, improve the quality of our publications and bring out new publications, providing opportunities to members for self-developments.

International Federation for Information Processing is an umbrella body consisting of all the leading National Computer Societies in the world and other leading societies like IEEE Computer Society, ACM and Regional Computer Federations like CEPIS from Europe, CLEI from Latin America, SEARCC and technical societies like VLDB, IMEA (Med. Informatics), etc. IFIP carries out most of its work through 100+ Working Groups in different technical areas, which are grouped into 13 Technical Committees. CSI can provide opportunities to Indian academicians and researchers to work with their international peers in these Working Groups and Technical Committees. In addition, the Special Interest Groups can also be connected to their global counterparts, so that they can interact with their global colleagues, invite a wider participation in their activities from around the world and participate in international events organized by these Working Groups, Technical Committees and access and publish in the prestigious IFIP publications and the new Digital Library.

While CSI has enjoyed a good relationship with IFIP over the years, the large amount of academic and research work being done in Indian Universities, Research Institutions and other professional organizations is not very well known in IFIP. Equally, all this technical and academic activity can attract a larger number of IFIP events and technical activities to India. We believe that this increased involvement can benefit our current membership by providing them better global access, and also attract new members from Universities, Research Institutions and other professional organizations - who may want to benefit by greater access to the best computer societies in the world, their events and publications.

In recent years, we have nominated a number of CSI Representatives on IFIP Technical Committees and worked with IFIP at various levels to get better visibility for CSI and get more events to India.

Our current representatives on IFIP TCs ( Term 2006-09 ) are –

TC-2 Software: Theory and Practice (2009-12) - Prof. Pankaj Jalote

TC-3 ICT and Education (2009-12) - Prof. M P Gupta

TC-5 Information Technology Applications - Dr. Rattan K. Datta
- 2007-10, very active in the TC

TC-6 Communication Systems (2005-08) - Prof. S V Raghavan
- Very well respected in IFIP, General Chair
of IFIP TC 6 Conference, Networking 2010

TC-8 Information Systems - Dr. Ashok Agarwal
- Term expired, has asked not to be re-nominated

TC-9 Relationship between Computers & Society - Ms. Mini Ulanat
- Term expired

TC-11 Security & Protection on IP Systems - Dr. Rama K Subramaniam
- Term expired, may be willing for re-nomination

TC-12 Artificial Intelligence - Prof. P V S Rao
- Term expired

TC-13 Human Computer Interaction - Mr. Anirudha Joshi
- Active in IFIP Working Group

While some of them have been active and have attended TC meetings, many of them have not been able to travel to TC meetings regularly, because of limited travel support; some have funded their own travel too. Some of them have organised prestigious events in India, e.g. IFCAI conference in Hyderabad, Bio-Informatics conference in Surat, Networking 2010 in Chennai, WG meeting on HCI at Pune, etc. On the other hand, some of them have been consistently inactive, never reported to Execom, and IFIP had asked us to have them replaced. On the other hand, in some cases TC Chairs have asked for specific TC Reps to be nominated, and welcomed some of the recent appointments. The current representatives’ recent reports on their activities in the last 2/3 years are enclosed separately.

Suggestions for Improving our work with IFIP TCs

1. We should appoint representatives from India only in the TCs which are of interest to us and the nominated representative is able to effectively participate. While bringing good conferences to India is an important task of the TC Rep, the participation has to go beyond it - it has to involve taking a position and furthering the IFIP thought process in that area. Unless CSI has provision for travel budget for the meetings, when we have academics as representatives, the attendance of our representation will be poor and consequently our contribution will not be noticeable.

2. Additionally, the TC reps should be able to promote active research / academic work in that area in India, and publish papers / books and present papers in international conferences. They should be well connected to the academic / research community in that area within India, so that they can provide a way for the TC and Working Groups to recruit active participants from India and help them organise workshops, seminars, summer schools and conferences in India. One suggestion is for the TC Rep to lead an SIG in a directly related area or work closely with an existing SIG. Next, the SIG members could be motivated to work in the Working Groups of that TC (each TC has 8-10 Working Groups), where the real work of the TCs takes place, as some of the TC Reps have reported.

3. The TC Rep should be able to get travel support for about two TC meetings during a 3-year term, with CSI helping out for the 3rd meeting. This travel support could come from his organisation, from the government or from some sponsor. The TC Rep also gets involved in membership of Int'l Program Committees, etc, but those meetings are usually paid for.

4. We could have a limit of two consecutive 3-year terms for a TC Rep, except when he / she holds an executive position in the TC.

5. All the TC Reps should get elected for staggered 3-year terms, so that there is continuity in terms of our involvement with IFIP; therefore while some Reps will be serving the term of 2007-10, some will be serving for 2009-12, etc.

6. I do not think a notification in CSI Communication is the appropriate manner to select persons to be proposed by us as TC Reps. This selection task could be done by President, in consultation with the Academic Committee. We need to consider people from academia as well as industry. Companies also have a stake in furthering the thought process in the relevant area, in order that their business interests are served. This is also a forum for learning; therefore they will take interest and also will not expect travel support. We also need to consider people from education field.

7. The TC Reps should present their action plan / objectives to Execom, within 6 months of their nomination, and this should also be put up on the web pages assigned to that IFIP TC on the CSI Knowledge Portal so that all CSI professionals and non-members can be attracted to participate.

8. All the TC Reps / SIG Convenors should be got together in an Ad-hoc body which could meet once a year, like the National Council meeting at the Annual Convention.

9. By combining the TC Reps’ work with the SIGs’ activities, we will not only be strengthening each of these activities, but will be able to have a strong focus on attracting academicians and researchers to work closely with CSI.

Lalit Sawhney

May 2010

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