The ACM SIGAI Industry Award for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be given annually to individuals or teams who have transferred original academic research into AI applications in recent years in ways that demonstrate the power of AI techniques via a combination of the following features: originality of the research novelty and technical excellence of the approach; importance of AI techniques to the approach; and actual or predicted societal impact of the application. Awardees receive a plaque accompanied by a prize of $5,000, and will be recognized at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence through an agreement with the IJCAI Board of Trustees.
After decades of progress in the theory, research and development of AI, AI applications are increasingly moving into the commercial sector. A great deal of pioneering application-level work is being done by those transferring research results into industry—from startups to large corporations—and this is influencing commerce and the broad public in a wide variety of ways. This award complements the numerous academic, best-paper and related awards, in that it focuses on innovators of fielded AI applications. It is intended especially to recognize those who are not only active in the academic community, but also playing key roles in AI commercialization. The award honors these innovators and highlights their achievements (and thus the benefit of AI techniques) to computing professionals and the public at large. The award committee will consider applications that are open-source or proprietary and that may or may not involve hardware.
Evaluation Criteria: The criteria include the following, but there is no fixed weighting of them:
Eligibility Criteria: Any individual or team, worldwide, is eligible for the award.
One nomination and three endorsements must be submitted. The nomination must identify the individual or team members, describe their fielded AI system, and explain how it addresses the award criteria. The nomination must be written by a member of ACM SIGAI. Two of the endorsements must be from members of ACM or ACM SIGAI. Endorsements are intended to be brief statements of support (typically 1-2 paragraphs and should not exceed 1000 words) that provide additional perspective on the nomination itself.
If you are not a member of ACM SIGAI, please join here.
Please submit the nomination and endorsements through our Google form.
For any questions please contact Craig Boutilier (Award Chair) or Nicholas Mattei (SIGAI Vice Chair).
Nominations Due: May 31, 2022
Award Announcement: June 30, 2022
Award Presentation: July 23 – 29 at IJCAI 2022.