This proposal is written to provide the international steering committee with an insight into our intentions for holding ICES 2003 in Norway. The members of our organising committee would like to encourage further growth in the promising field of evolvable hardware. Thus, it is our sincere goal to contribute to this by arranging a well organised professional ICES conference.

 

xx	General Chair
Pauline C Haddow, EHW,	Program co-Chair
Jim Tørresen, Evolvable Hardware,	Program co-Chair
Keith Downing, EVAL,	Local Chair
Gunnar Tufte, EHW,	Organising Secretary

main contact person: Pauline

Pauline C Haddow, IDI, O.S. Bragstads plass 2E, 7491 Trondheim, Norway, home tel: 47 73 53 45 13, paulineh@c2i.net

 

Pauline C Haddow,	NTNU, Trondheim, Norway,	tel: 47 73 59 44 58	pauline@idi.ntnu.no
Jim Tørresen,	University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway,	tel 47 22 85 24 54	jimtoer@ifi.uio.no
Keith Downing,	NTNU, Trondheim, Norway,	tel 47 73 59 02 71	keithd@idi.ntnu.no
Gunnar Tufte,	NTNU, Trondheim, Norway,	tel 47 73 59 03 56	gunnart@idi.ntnu.no

Late March 2003, 3 days - either (Monday to Wednesday) or (Wednesday to Friday)

Our reason for suggesting March 2003 is to avoid collision with article deadlines and therefore competition between EH 2003 and ICES 2003. This will also allow 1 1/2 years between ICES conferences.  March is also a very good time to visit Norway. It's late winter so it's not so cold but there is still a lot of snow around. It is usually a very beautiful time of year with longer days, snow and sunshine.  We believe that the winter climate as long as it isn't too cold will draw delegates to Norway.
We are, however, open to organising the conference at a different time of year if preferred.

Trondheim, Norway

Trondheim (Vaernes airport) has direct flights to Copenhagen - ca 1 1/2 hours and via Oslo, Stavanger or Bergen to other European destinations. SAS airline has also direct flights to the USA from Oslo which is about a 50 minute flight from Trondheim.

Under investigation. Most likely:

Radisson SAS Royal Garden Hotel, Trondheim

Although we will reserve delegate rooms at the conference hotel, we will also arrange a range of cheaper accommodation alternatives for those who wish it.

Reviewing

Double blind reviewing

Keynote and Invited speakers

Following the excellent invited talks at ICES 2000 our aim is to continue this tradition. No specific speakers are suggested at present. These decisions will be taken after ICES 2001.

Technical sessions

1 or 2 parallel.
As the field of EHW is growing there may be a significant number of good contributions to justify 2 tracks instead of 1 by 2003. Therefore, this decision is best left until we see how much the field has grown by 2003 and the quality of the contributions received.

Poster sessions

We believe that the poster sessions are an important contribution to the number of delegates that are able to attend the conference in addition to providing the opportunity for more direct discussion with the poster presenters.  To make the poster sessions more attractive we intend to include short presentations (max 5 minutes) for each poster at the start of a given poster session. In addition, we intend to avoid overlap between technical and poster sessions.

Panel Debate(s)

We would like to include a panel debate in this conference. We feel that a good panel debate provides the opportunity for the delegates to interact ideas on an important issue within EHW. No topic is suggested at the present time.

Tutorials

We are considering the possibility of perhaps a half day of tutorials. Possible themes could be:
- an introduction to evolvable hardware (for new delegates),
- biological methods and processes (to help to stimulate new ideas in the field),
- state-of-the-art of field programmable devices.

Reception - day 1
Bus tour to Løkken mine. Tour of the mine and reception with entertainment in the mine. A stage and reception area is down in the mine. After the tour the winter conditions will enable us to provide a horse drawn sleigh trip from the mine  (this part would probably be kept secret as a special surprise). The buses will meet us at the end of the ride for the trip back to Trondheim.
Banquet - day 2
Several culturally rich banquet locations are available where both the character of the building itself and the cuisine can be ordered with a particular Norwegian flavour. In addition to the dinner speech, we intend to provide some entertainment for the delegates.
Day 1 and day 2's entertainment will be included in the conference fees.
Scenic tours
As many delegates try to travel over a weekend to take advantage of the cheaper flights we intend to provide tours either within Trondheim itself or to the neighbouring areas. A number of possibilities exist including trips to Røros - a culturally rich small town surrounded by beautiful scenic countryside where delegates can try cross-country skiing or to Oppdal - the nearest large ski resort.  Such activities will not be included as part of the conference fee but delegates will have the possibility to register for tours when registering for the conference.

It is early days in the hunt for funding. Both NTNU and the University of Oslo provide economical support for international
conferences. Several Norwegian companies have been involved in sponsoring international conferences and therefore we see no problem in gaining support from Norwegian industry. We can also apply to the Norwegian research council for funding. They are already involved in financing one of our evolvable hardware research projects.

One key feature here is that we are very keen to keep the conference fees low so as to attract new members to the research field and also to encourage existing members to attend.