2010Q3 Reports: Exhibits Chairs
Report of the Exhibits Chair (Jörg Tiedemann)
The possibilities for arranging exhibitions during ACL 2010 have been advertised through a wide range of channels. The call for exhibits has been sent to all major e-mail lists and the ACL community (mostly via the connections of the publicity chairs). Furthermore, several publishing houses (over 15 companies) that are active in the field of linguistics, computational linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence have been contacted. Invitations have als been sent to over 30 Swedish and international companies working with information and language technology. The ACL sponsors were informed about the possibilities of setting up a trade booth during the conference.
The response to the invitations was rather disappointing which is probably due to the economic situation of most companies around the world. Currently four exhibitions are planned. Two will be organized by the gold sponsors textkernel and GSLT, one will be prepared by Acapela Group and another one by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. The latter will be unmanned. A last call for papers has been sent on 9 June 2010 and we hope for possibly one or two additional exhibitions.
The local arrangements are in place. Exhibition space has been allocated and facilities will be prepared (power connection, wired internet, tables & chairs, poster easel). The information about available equipment has been sent to the exhibitors and all other issues are constantly discussed with the contact persons of the companies.
Exhibitions will be placed in the hall of the main building of Uppsala University which will be used for both presentations and coffee/lunch breaks, assuring excellent visibility and "foot traffic". The exhibition area will be prepared on the weekend several days before the conference giving the companies and sponsors enough time to properly setup their exhibitions. Members of the ACL Crew will always be available to help with technical and other issues during the main conference.