Dr. Brett Becker and Dr. Catherine Mooney (UCD Computer Science) along with Dr. Keith Quille (TU Dublin) are delighted to announce that the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) officially chartered a new Ireland ACM SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) chapter. Dr. Becker is serving as Chair, Dr. Quille is serving as vice-chair and Dr. Mooney is serving as treasurer for the first board term.
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that SIGCSEire has just reached 100 members!
The mission of the Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter is:
· to provide a unifying forum to foster and advance the state of Computing Education in Ireland
· to promote dissemination of best practices in Computing Education research and practice
· positively influencing equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in computing
This mission transcends all stakeholders in Computing Education in Ireland including formal and informal educators and students as well as government, industry, volunteer and grass-roots stakeholders.
SIGCSEire is holding an official chapter launch on December 11 at the UCD School of Computer Science from 2-6pm. Details can be found at (opens in a new window)https://SIGCSEire.acm.org <(opens in a new window)https://sigcseire.acm.org/>. The launch will feature welcome addresses from Associate Professor Chris Bleakley <(opens in a new window)https://people.ucd.ie/chris.bleakley> (Head of School of UCD Computer Science) and Professor Joe Carthy <(opens in a new window)https://people.ucd.ie/joe.carthy> (College Principal, UCD College of Science) as well as keynote addresses from Professor Amber Settle <(opens in a new window)https://www.cdm.depaul.edu/Faculty-and-Staff/Pages/faculty-info.aspx?fid=768> (DePaul University, Chicago, USA and SIGCSE Board Member - immediate past-chair) and Associate Professor Paul Dickson <(opens in a new window)https://faculty.ithaca.edu/pdickson/> (Ithaca College, NY, USA).
Membership is open to anyone, regardless of location or sector, provided you have a genuine interest in the chapter, Computing Education in Ireland, and SIGCSE. There are no dues to join. Attendance at the event on December 11 is also free of charge, and is supported by the UCD School of Computer Science. However becoming a member and registering for the event are separate processes, both available at (opens in a new window)https://SIGCSEire.acm.org <(opens in a new window)https://sigcseire.acm.org/>. You need not be a member to attend the Chapter Launch, but registration is essential for catering purposes, for both members and non-members.
In having a SIGCSE chapter chartered, Ireland joins only four other countries (or country conglomerates) to have SIGCSE Chapters, the others being Australasia, China, India and the United Kingdom.
The ACM was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and education computing society with nearly 100,000 members. SIGCSE <(opens in a new window)https://sigcse.org/sigcse/> was founded in 1970 and has nearly 3,000 members. SIGCSE is the third largest and second oldest of nearly 40 ACM Special Interest Groups. SIGCSEire was founded in 2019 and is only 30 times smaller than SIGCSE and only 1000 times smaller than the ACM!
Come join us in a new chapter in Ireland's Computing Education journey!