Multimedia Grand Challenge Proposals

The call for Multimedia Grand Challenge proposals is now closed. The selected Grand Challenges are available on the Multimedia Grand Challenge call for participation page.

ACM Multimedia is the premier international conference in the area of multimedia within the field of computer science. Multimedia research focuses on integration of the multiple perspectives offered by different digital modalities including images, text, video, music, sensor data, spoken audio.

ACM Multimedia is calling for proposals for Grand Challenges in 2019. Proposers with an innovative idea of a Multimedia Grand Challenge, should gather an organizational team with the capacity to carry out the organization of a challenge, and submit a proposal according to the instructions below. In 2019, we are emphasizing the continuity of Grand Challenges, which is important in order to support sustained and substantial progress in the state of the art. We ask that organizer teams who would like to propose Grand Challenges to express a commitment to organize their Grand Challenge multiple years in a row.

The Multimedia Grand Challenge was first presented as part of ACM Multimedia 2009 and has established itself as a prestigious competition in the multimedia community. The purpose of the Multimedia Grand Challenge is to engage the multimedia research community by establishing well-defined and objectively judged challenge problems intended to exercise the state-of-the-art methods and inspire future research directions. The key criteria for Grand Challenges are that they should be useful, interesting, and their solution should involve a series of research tasks over a long period of time, with pointers towards longer-term research.

A Multimedia Grand Challenge proposal should include:

  •       A brief description to explain why the challenge problem is important and relevant to the multimedia research community, industry, and society over the next 3-5 years or a longer horizon.
  •       A description of a specific set of research tasks or sub-tasks to be carried out towards tackling the challenge problem in the long run.
  •       An outline of current state-of-the-art techniques and why this Grand Challenge would help accelerate research in this important area.
  •       Link to sites containing relevant datasets to be used for objective training and evaluation of the grand challenge tasks. Full appropriate documentation on the datasets should be provided or made accessible.
  •       A description of rigorously defined objective criteria and/or procedures on how the submissions will be evaluated or judged.
  •       A commitment to publish and maintain a website related to their specific Grand Challenge containing the information, datasets, tasks for the Grand Challenge at least the next 3 years.
  •       Work with ACM Multimedia Conference organisers to publicize the Grand Challenge tasks to researchers for participation.
  •       Contact information of at least two organizers who will be responsible for organising, publicizing, reviewing and judging the Grand Challenge submissions as described in the proposal.
  •       Note that although we ask organizers to express a multi-year commitment to their Grand Challenge, the Challenge will still undergo a new review each year. Priority will be given to Grand Challenges which have been successful in the past and are clearly contributing to continuity.

Please submit your proposals via email to the Multimedia Grand Challenge Chairs at MM19-GdC@sigmm.org

Important Dates

  •       Submission of Grand Challenge Proposals: 8 January 2019
  •       Notification of Acceptance: 28 January 2019
  •       Web Site and Call for Participation Ready: 18 February 2019
  •       Submission of solutions Grand Challenge: 8 July 2019 (required deadline)

Contacts

For questions regarding the Grand Challenges you can email the Multimedia Grand Challenge Chairs at MM19-GdC@sigmm.org

Tao Mei (JD.COM, China)

Vivek Singh (Rutgers University, USA)

Those interested in submitting a Grand Challenge proposal are encouraged to review the problem descriptions from past ACM Multimedia conferences as examples. See, e.g., http://www.acmmm.org/2016/?page_id=353