[Comp-neuro] 2014 Telluride Workshop: CALL FOR TOPIC AREA PROPOSALS: Deadline December 20th

Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop :: Call for Topic Area Proposals

 

Call for Topic Area Proposals

2014 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop

Telluride, Colorado, June 29 -July 19, 2014

We are now accepting proposals for Topic Areas in the 2014 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop. We support topics and projects in neuromorphic cognition, particularly those that involve solving challenging ‘everyday’ tasks that incorporate domain-specific knowledge, exploration, prediction, and problem solving. In particular, we are interested in projects that hold promise for addressing Grand Challenge types of problems that do not have strong solutions of any form, neuromorphic or not. These Challenge problems should feature long-duration sensorimotor problems that involve autonomous cognitive decision making. Examples might include tasks such as learning a new language, navigating through an unknown environment to locate an object or reach a desired location, adaptively manipulating unknown or complex objects in the service of a task, playing a game requiring inference of hidden information or long-term planning and learning, etc. Proposals related to hardware technologies that aim to bring these capabilities to reality are also encouraged. Topic proposals that aim to solve a particular problem using the multidisciplinary experience of participants will be favored over topics that simply gather a large number of people working within a discipline, or using a single technology, or approach.

Topic areas for this summer's Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop will be chosen from proposals submitted to the organizers.  We will have 4 topic areas and a “Future hardware technologies” tutorial/projects group.

Topic areas can span a large field; we are looking for leadership in planning activities and inviting good people in a field.  Although past topic areas have tended to be very broad and discipline-oriented (e.g., cognition, audition, vision, robotics, neural interfacing, neuromorphic VLSI, etc.), application-oriented topic areas (e.g., sensor fusion, game-playing robot, object recognition, sound localization, human robot interaction, etc.) are especially desirable.

Topic area leaders will receive housing for themselves and their invitees, and limited travel funds. Topic area leaders will help to define the field of neuromorphic cognition engineering through the projects they pursue and the people they invite.  They shape their topic by inviting speakers and project leaders (the invitees) and by initiating topic area project discussions prior to the workshop.

Teams of two organizers are required. One of the organizers should be an attendee of a previous Telluride Workshop (in any capacity) and has stayed at the Workshop for at least one week. The second organizer should be a person who comes ideally from a field outside neuromorphic engineering.

Pre-workshop topic area choices and study assignments.
Before the workshop begins, each topic area will be required to prepare and distribute study materials that constitute:

• an introductory presentation (e.g., pptx, video, review paper) of the fundamental knowledge associated with the topic area that everyone at the workshop should be exposed to
• a few critical papers that the participants in the topic area should read before the workshop.
• the topic area should begin a serious group discussion of the projects (e.g., via Facebook, Skype, email, etc). 

The maximum 2-page proposals should include:

1. Title of topic area.
2. Names of the two topic leaders, their affiliations, and contact information (email addresses required)
   
3. A paragraph explaining the focus and goals of the topic area.
4. A list of possible specific topic area projects.
5. A list of example invitees (up to six names and institutions). Commitments from your invitees should already be in place such that these invitees can come to the workshop if your proposal is accepted.
6. Any other material that fits within the two-page limit that will help us make a smart choice.

Send your topic area proposal in pdf or text format to org13(at)neuromorphs.net with subject line containing "2014 topic area proposal".

Proposals must be received by December 20th, 2013; proposals received after the deadline may still be considered if space is available.

Resources limit the workshop to 4 topic areas, each with 5 invitees. If your proposal for the topic area is not accepted, we will work with you to see if there is a natural way to include your ideas (and you) into the accepted topic areas. We hope to have significant turn-over each year in the topic areas and leaders to ensure fresh new ideas and participants.

See the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering for background information on the workshop and neuromorphs.net for past workshop wikis.

We look forward to your topic proposals!

Deadline: December 20th, 2013

The Workshop Directors: 
Cornelia Fermuller (University of Maryland), Ralph Etienne-Cummings (Johns Hopkins Univ.) Shih-Chii Liu (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich), Timmer Horiuchi (University of Maryland)

Former 2007-2012 Workshop Director:
Tobi Delbruck (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich)

 

 

--   -------------------------------------------------  Ralph Etienne-Cummings  Professor  Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering  The Johns Hopkins University  105 Barton Hall  3400 N. Charles Street  Baltimore, MD 21218  Tel: (410) 516 3494  Fax: (410) 516 2939  Email: retienne@jhu.edu  URL:  http://etienne.ece.jhu.edu/