ICML 2014 - CALL FOR SITE PROPOSALS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MACHINE LEARNING (ICML) 2016

In the summer of 2016, the 33th International Conference on Machine
Learning (ICML-2016) will be held. We invite groups interested in
hosting the conference to submit a letter of intent by March 31, 2014,
and a complete proposal by May 31, 2014.
Proposals from North America are particularly encouraged; however,
proposals from elsewhere will also be given serious consideration.
(ICML-2013 was in Atlanta, Georgia, ICML-2014 will be in Beijing,
China, and ICML-2015 will be in Lille, France).
Proposals should address the following issues:
1. Proposed Dates. The conference should be scheduled for five-six
days (one-three days reserved for workshops and tutorials; three days
for paper sessions, poster sessions, and invited talks). The
conference prefers dates in the range from June 15 to July 15, but
other dates will be considered, particularly if they permit
co-location with other related conferences.
2. Locale Parameters.
- Capacity. Machine learning is a growing field, and the most
recent ICML conferences have drawn between 700-750 participants,
up to four parallel tracks of technical talks, and up to nine
parallel workshops or tutorials.
- Cost issues. Historically ICML conferences have tried to keep
attendance costs low, to encourage attendance from students and
newcomers to the field. Thus the proposal should address the
accessibility of the location---i.e., if is it easy and inexpensive
for people (especially graduate students) to travel to the
conference site. (To answer this question, please compute mean
airfares from Europe, North America, and Asia, and discuss visa
issues if relevant.) The proposal should also discuss whether
meals and lodging available conveniently at reasonable cost. (To
answer this question, please estimate costs for meals and lodging,
and discuss the proximity to the conference site of eating places.)
- Meeting Rooms, AV Equipment, etc. What are the physical
facilities like? Consider rooms for plenary sessions, parallel
sessions, workshops, tutorials, and poster sessions. Is there
visible space for sponsors and publishers who want to set up
displays? What are the charges, if any, for using the various
rooms/locations?
- Internet Access. Is wired or wireless internet access
available? At what cost?
- Other features. You may mention any other aspects of the site
or the region that are relevant.
3. Local Machine Learning Community. Is there a local ML
group/community that can help with organization and funding?
4. Opportunities to co-locate with other conferences. In the past, we
have co-located with COLT, UAI, and KDD. There is strong interest in
co-locating with these conferences and also with other related
conferences including ISMB (Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology),
EMNLP (Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing), CoNLL
(Conference on Natural Language Learning), IUI (Intelligent User
Interfaces), and CVPR (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition).
5. Organizational and Institutional Support. Is there a conference
office that can help with local arrangements?
6. Budgetary Issues. In order to compare competing proposals, every
proposal will be asked to complete a spreadsheet that discusses
budgetary aspects (ask William Cohen for these spreadsheets). Some
issues that must be addressed are: Is any financial support available
from the hosting institution and/or local industry? What is a rough
estimate of the expected conference registration fees (including a
student rate, and the rate for workshops only, if applicable?)
Letters of intent need contain nothing other than a non-binding
statement of intent and a list of likely principals, but should be
emailed by March 31, 2014 to:
William W. Cohen
President, International Machine Learning Society (IMLS)
wcohen-AT-cs.cmu.edu
General questions about proposing a site should also be addressed to
William Cohen. Proposals (in PDF) should be emailed to the same
address by May 31, 2014, accompanied by a spreadsheet for budgetary
information. Note that this year IMLS will provide a spreadsheet
format for budget predictions (so that we can more easily compare
competing proposals.)
The IMLS governing board will rank proposals according to properties
such as cost and accessibility, proposed dates, opportunities for
co-location, attractiveness of the location, and experience of the
host group.
Note that IMLS chooses the Program Chair and General Chair as a
decision separate from the choice of the site. The site proposal
should only propose a Local Arrangements Chair and other relevant
supporting positions (e.g., Volunteers Coordinator, Registration
Chair, etc.).