International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
The IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) is a meeting organized by the IJCAI, Inc for researchers from the different areas of artificial intelligence (AI). It has been held every couple of years ever since 1969. At first, the IJCAI wasn’t held there were meetings of the ECAI, AAAI. However, nowadays the AAAI conference runs every year. When it is held in North America, the IJCAI is usually organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and therefore replaces the AAAI conference. It is a highly selective conference, as only 20% of the papers submitted to the conference were accepted in 2005, making it harder to be accepted in it than most AI journals.
The awards
During every IJCAI conferences, three research awards are given. The first one is the Computers & Thought Award that is awarded researchers usually younger than 35 years old and having already made a great contribution to the field. The second one is the Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award, awarded to researchers that have done a lot of the grunt work the last years. Finally there is the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence, awarded to researchers who have had a relatively significant impact on the field. Researchers who previously obtained this award include Alan Bundy, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Ray Reiter, and Judea Pearl.
IJCAI 2009
The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence 09, whose theme was The Interdisciplinary Reach of Artificial Intelligence, was held in Pasadena, home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. The town is situated north-east of Los Angeles, an area that is at the heart of the US space and entertainment industries. This location provided an ideal stage for IJCAI-09, where innovations spanning the entire spectrum of artificial intelligence and related fields have been discussed.
Artificial Intelligence has always been both forward-looking, having a large impact on a wide range of disciplines in science, engineering, medicine, the social sciences, the arts and humanities.