HYDERABAD, INDIA: The 2-day ACM India Annual Conference 2011, organized by ACM India Council which is a part of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), began here at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.

In an interview with CIOL, Anand Deshpande, Chairman of ACM India discussed about council's focus and plans for mproving the quality of computing education in India.

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Excerpts:

CIOL: What is the focus of 2011 conference? 
 
Anand Deshpande:

The focus of the ACM India Annual Conference is to increase awareness of ACM in India and also to create a forum for ACM members to meet and interchange ideas.  ACM members are leading researchers and academicians and during an event such as this one, when members meet, new collaborations get initiated.
 
CIOL: What is ACM doing to improve computing education in school/universities of India?

Deshpande: There is a proposal to review and provide recommendations for the M. Tech curriculum.  ACM has published a curriculum for undergraduate education that is followed by many universities.  At a later stage, ACM India may look at
customizing the curriculum.

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CIOL: What are the efforts that you are making to advance computing as a science and a profession?
 
Deshpande: ACM, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession. ACM provides the computing field's premier Digital Library and serves its
members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources.

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CIOL: Can you share some of the important activities of the ACM India in the recent past
 
Deshpande: We had an annual conference in Bangalore in Jan 2010.  We had three Turing Award winners, including the 2008 winner Barbara Liskov presenting at that event.  In addition to the ACM India event, we now have 11 professional
chapters and 39 student chapters that conducted local activities for ACM members.  We also participated in the Grace Murray Hopper event Celebrating Women in Computing in Bangalore in December.

CIOL: What about the plan to hounour ACM Turing award winners?

Deshpande: We have the most recent ACM Turing Award Winner - Dr. Chuck Thacker and the ACM Infosys Award winner Dr. Eric Brewer attending and presenting at this conference.

Each year, ACM bestows honors to recognize people from an educational and scientific society uniting the world's computing educators, researchers and professionals. The awards are the A.M. Turing Award (called the "Nobel
Prize of Computing," by Wired magazine); ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences for contributions to a contemporary innovation; Grace Murray Hopper Award for young computer professionals; Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award; Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award; and Allen Newell Award honoring contributions that bridge computer science and other disciplines.