Regional Liaisons

Regional Liaisons are appointed volunteers who develop interest in their local areas for SIGCHI and CHI2004. SIGCHI has a strong interest in extending our relations worldwide to make our international society truly representative of the diversity in our community.

CHI2004 has established the following regional liaisons who serve as regional contacts for information about the conference. Most importantly, regional liaisons work with the Conference Co-Chairs and Special Area Chairs to ensure international balance in the CHI2004 technical program. They also forward to CHI2004 events and contacts who may be interested in CHI2004 promotion and publicity, as well as connecting CHI2004 with possibilities for new cooperations with other organizations. On another level, our regional liaisons may be called upon to assist with housing and registration problems their local registrants may experience.

Please contact your local Regional Liaisons with opportunities, issues, comments and recommendations.

Eastern Europe

Pavel Slavik Czech Technical University, Czech Republic Contact Me chi2004-rl-eastern-europe@acm.org

CHI 2004 in Vienna provides an opportunity for East European scientists in the field of HCI to interact with scientists from the rest of the world. Relatively easy access to the conference location increases the likelihood of their participating in the conference.

Research in the field, including psychology and ergonomics, has a long tradition in the region.From the point of view of technology, there exist a number of research groups dealing with particular topics in HCI, such as graphical communication, speech comunication, and so on. We can make many interesting observations on new technology acceptance in various countries in the region based on their historical and cultural background. Historical developments in the region provide experience with multilingual issues in various applications. The conference location - Vienna - has played an important role throughout history as a place where various cultures and languages interacted.

South Africa

Jacques Hugo Usability Sciences Consulting, South Africa Contact Me chi2004-rl-south-africa@acm.org

The Southern African HCI community is small, but the region is characterized by unique cultural values and bold technology innovation. We are hard at work implementing the initiatives identified at the CHI2002 Development Consortium, the results of which we would like to share with the international community.

Asia

Kumiyo Nakakoji University of Tokyo, Japan

Yasuyuki Sumi Kyoto University, Japan Contact Us chi2004-rl-asia@acm.org

Due to the diversity of its cultures, the Asia-Pacific region includes a number of innovative HCI-related activities, such as games, media-arts, and other forms of entertainment computing, Internet-connected mobile phones, community computing, and cross-cultural collaboration support. We hope to maximize the opportunities for sharing our experiences with the HCI communities in other parts of the world.

South America

Milene Selbach Silveira Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Contact Me chi2004-rl-south-america@acm.org

There are several HCI groups spread around Latin America. To foster communication and collaboration among their members, the first Latin American Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, CLIHC2003, will take place in August 2003. For CHI2004, we hope to share the results of this initial contact as well as to present the start of a true HCI community in this region.