ACM SIGMM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MESSAGE

We thank all the members of SIGMM for having elected us to lead ACM SIGMM for the next two years. We are also grateful to the previous SIGMM Executive Committee for the great work done in the extraordinarily difficult conditions generated by the COVID pandemic and their helpful handover.

We are truly committed to make the Multimedia research community even more inclusive, important and present worldwide.

There are exciting opportunities just out of our doors. Communications are ready to offer us a tremendous capability for interconnection of people and devices. Artificial intelligence tools are becoming part of our lives, augmenting some of our abilities, and supporting the development of new skills.. The presence of sensing objects and the experience of augmented realities in our daily lives is growing.. The groundwork is maturing for new and more powerful computing technologies beyond digital.
In such a context, Multimedia is central, as an integration technology that can effectively merge knowledge from multiple modalities and languages, enabling more powerful machine learning and reasoning, more effective information communication and return .... Ultimately making multimedia data and machines more useful and accessible  for everyone.
We set realistic goals for our two-year term:
We will work with the SIGMM Local Chapters to increase SIGMM membership, by giving value to it for the researchers of our community.  
We will encourage and support the active participation of young researchers. We will give more visibility to our awardees as SIGMM ambassadors.
We will strive to increase openness of multimedia research, code and datasets in the Multimedia community events.
We will strengthen the collaboration between ACM SIGMM conferences and ACM TOMM journal, SIGMM Records and our SIGMM social media channels, encouraging wide dissemination of Multimedia research, and building a top-quality system of not negligible venues for Multimedia-AI researchers.
In a highly competitive scenario, we will strive to improve industry participation in major ACM SIGMM conferences, looking for new special programs and initiatives to build industry loyalty.
Equity and inclusion are two main objectives of ours. Gender balance and diversity together with excellence will be our guiding criteria in participation and roles. We will strive for inclusion, meaning this term in its broadest sense. In particular, we will work to encourage and support the active participation of research communities in under-resourced countries and promote initiatives to support deserving researchers with financial difficulties.

The ACM SIGMM Executive Committee

Alberto del Bimbo ACM SIGMM Chair

Phoebe Chen ACM SIGMM Vice-Chair

Miriam Redi ACM SIGMM Director of Conferences