This award concerns outstanding dissertations completed in a Canadian University during 2012¹ in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The winner will be announced at the 2013 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Regina from May 28th to May 31th, 2013 and will be invited to give a talk at the conference (conference registration will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $1000). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $500 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit *one* nomination to CAIAC's Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis Submissions must include:

• a nomination letter from the head of the academic unit detailing the rationale for the nomination,
• a reference letter from the thesis supervisor,
• a copy of the thesis' external report,
• a non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed)
• and an electronic link to the complete thesis

The nominee must be a CAIAC member by the submission deadline indicated below. The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled --CAIAC-PhDAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at felipe@iro.umontreal.ca² by January 15th 2013 at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

1. The final (post-defense) version of the dissertation must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2012.
2. The secretary will acknowledge receipt of the submitted document within three business days.

The Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association/L'Association pour l'Intelligence Artificielle au Canada (CAIAC) is happy to announce its second AI Masters Thesis Award

This award concerns outstanding MSc theses completed in a Canadian University during 2012 in the field of Artificial Intelligence (note 1). The winner will be announced at the 2013 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Regina from May 28th to May 31st, 2013 and will be invited to give a talk at the Graduate Symposium during the conference (the symposium and conference registration will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $800). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $200 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit *one* nomination to CAIAC's Masters Thesis Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis submission must include:

• a nomination letter from the head of the academic unit detailing the rationale for the nomination,
• a reference letter from the thesis supervisor,
• a copy of the thesis' external report or a summary report from the internal reviewers (maximum of two pages),
• a non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed),
• and an electronic link to the complete thesis in PDF format.

The nominee must be a CAIAC member by the submission deadline indicated below. The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled --CAIAC-MScAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at mailto:felipe@iro.umontreal.ca (note 2) by January 15th, 2013, at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

Notes:

1. The final (post-defense) version of the MSc thesis must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2012.
2. The secretary will acknowledge receipt of the submitted document within three business days.

On behalf of CAIAC executive
Philippe Langlais, CAIAC secretary

We are pleased to announce the new website for the 2013 AI/GI/CRV Conference.

Please visit aigicrv.org/aigicrv2013/

We are pleased to announce the 2012 CAIAC award winners:

• CAIAC 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award: Hector Levesque
• CAIAC 2012 Distinguished Service Award: Bob Mercer
• CAIAC 2012 Doctoral Dissertation Award: Albert Xin Jiang
• CAIAC 2012 Master's Thesis Award: Martin Lesmana

For more information visit our award winners page

The Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association/L'Association pour l'Intelligence Artificielle au Canada (CAIAC)

is happy to announce its third

AI Doctoral Dissertation Award

This award concerns outstanding dissertations completed in a Canadian University during 2011¹ in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The winner will be announced at the 2012 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Toronto from May 28th to May 30th, 2012 and will be invited to give a talk at the conference (conference registration will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $500). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $500 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit *one* nomination to CAIAC's Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis submission must include:

• a nomination letter from the head of the academic unit detailing the rationale for the nomination,
• a reference letter from the thesis supervisor,
• a copy of the thesis' external report,
• a non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed),
• and an electronic link to the complete thesis.

The nominee must be a CAIAC member by the submission deadline indicated below. The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled --CAIAC-PhDAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at felipe@iro.umontreal.ca² by January 15th 2012 at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

¹ The final (post-defense) version of the dissertation must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2011.

² The secretary will acknowledge receipt of the submitted document within three business days.

The Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association/L'Association pour l'Intelligence Artificielle au Canada (CAIAC) is happy to announce its first AI Masters Thesis Award

This award concerns outstanding MSc thesis completed in a Canadian University during 2011 in the field of Artificial Intelligence (note 1). The winner will be announced at the 2012 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Toronto from May 28th to May 30th, 2012 and will be invited to give a talk at the Graduate Symposium during the conference (the symposium and conference registration will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $800). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $200 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit one nomination to CAIAC's Masters Thesis Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis submission must include:

• a nomination letter from the head of the academic unit detailing the rationale for the nomination,
• a reference letter from the thesis supervisor,
• a copy of the thesis' external report or a summary report from the internal reviewers (maximum of two pages),
• a non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed),
• and an electronic link to the complete thesis in PDF format.

The nominee must be a CAIAC member by the submission deadline indicated below. The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled <last_name>-<school_name>-CAIAC-MScAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at felipe@iro.umontreal.ca (note 2) by January 27th 2012 at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

Notes:

1. The final (post-defense) version of the MSc thesis must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2011.
2. The secretary will acknowledge receipt of the submitted document within three business days.

CAIAC is pleased to announce that the Canadian AI 2012 Conference will be held at York University.

The conference will be held Monday May 28th to Wednesday May 30th 2012 with workshops on Sunday May 27th.

For more information visit http://www.canadianai.ca/AI_2012/

CAIAC is proud to announce the following awards winners:

• CAIAC Lifetime Achievement Award - Guy Lapalme
• Doctoral Dissertation Award - Martin de Lasa

For more information about the awards and their winners visit our Awards Page.

The Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association/L'Association pour l'Intelligence Artificielle au Canada (CAIAC)

is happy to announce its second

AI Doctoral Dissertation Award

This award concerns outstanding dissertations completed in a Canadian University during 2010¹ in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The winner will be announced at the 2011 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence held in Saint John's from May 25th to May 27th, 2011 and will be invited to give a lecture at the conference (conference registration and one free year of CAIAC membership will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $500). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $500 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit *one* nomination to CAIAC's Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis submission must include:

• a nomination letter from the head of the academic unit detailing the rationale for the nomination,
• a reference letter from the thesis supervisor,
• a copy of the thesis' external report,
• a non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed),
• and an electronic link to the complete thesis.

The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled --CAIAC-PhDAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at felipe@iro.umontreal.ca² by February 28th 2011 at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

¹ The final (post-defense) version of the dissertation must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2010.

² The secretary will acknowledge receipt of the submitted document within three business days.

The Executive Committee for CAIAC (Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association / Association pour l'intelligence artificielle au Canada, http://caiac.ca) is seeking nominations for the following two awards, to be presented in May at the Canadian AI-2011 conference in Saint John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (http://www.canadianai.ca/AI_2011/).

• The CAIAC Distinguished Service Award is presented to an individual to recognize his or her outstanding service to CAIAC (formerly the CSCSI/SCEIO) and to the Canadian Artificial Intelligence community.
• The CAIAC Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual to recognize a lifetime of scientific excellence and outstanding contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Nominations should be sent to the CAIAC secretary, Philippe Langlais (felipe@iro.umontreal.ca), by Thursday March 3, and should include a brief justification for the nomination. You should receive an acknowledgment of your nomination within three business days.

CAIAC is proud to announce the following awards, which were presented at AI 2010 in Ottawa, ON:

• CAIAC Lifetime Achievement Award - Alan Mackworth
• CAIAC Distinguished Service Award - Stan Matwin
• CAIAC Best Dissertation Award - Frank Hutter

For more information about the awards and their winners visit our Awards Page.

This award concerns outstanding dissertations completed in a Canadian University during 2009 2010 Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The winner will be announced at the held in Ottawa from May 31st to June 2nd, 2010 and will be invited to give a lecture at the conference (conference registration and one free year of CAIAC membership will be covered as well as travel expenses of up to $500). The winner will also receive a monetary prize of $500 and a certificate from CAIAC.

Every Academic Unit within a Canadian University is invited to submit *one* nomination to CAIAC's Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee, as long as the thesis is in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The thesis Submissions must include:

• A letter from the thesis supervisor detailing the rationale for the nomination
• A copy of the thesis' external report
• A non-technical summary of the thesis (a maximum of 350 words is allowed)
• An electronic link to the complete thesis

The submitted documents must all be in electronic format and must be sent in a zipped directory entitled --CAIAC-PhDAward.zip to the CAIAC Secretary at felipe@iro.umontreal.ca by April 1st 2010 at the latest. Both English and French submissions are welcome.

The final (post-defense) version of the dissertation must have been received and accepted by the graduate unit in 2009.

The Committee
Howard Hamilton, University of Regina
Guy Lapalme, Universite de Montreal
Stan Matwin, University of Ottawa
Evangelos Milios, Dalhousie University
Peter Van Beek, University of Waterloo

The 22nd Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, which took place May 25-27, 2009, in Kelowna, BC, was a great success. The conference featured excellent invited talks by Jonathan Schaeffer, Evgeniy Gabrilovich and Alan Mackworth.

The conference program included 15 long papers and 21 short papers, with the Best Paper Award being presented to Dong Song and Anoop Sarkar for their contribution, "Training Global Linear Models for Chinese Word Segmentation".

Dr. Howard Hamilton, from the University of Regina, was presented with the CAIAC Distinguished Service Award, recognizing his many years of outstanding contributions to the Canadian artificial intelligence community.

The winners of the first CAIAC/Precarn Intelligent Systems Challenge were also announced. The prize for the graduate student category was received by Yichuan Tang from the University of Waterloo, while the Grand Prize was awarded to Adam Williams and David Fagnan from the University of British Columbia.

The conference also featured a Graduate Student Symposium and the Second Canadian Semantic Web Working Symposium.

Our thanks to Nathalie Japkowicz and Yong Gao for their excellent work as AI 2009 program co-chairs, as well as to Yves Lucet (General Chair for the AI/GI/CRV 2009 conference) and to local arrangements co-chairs, Patricia Lasserre and Ramon Lawrence.

The following individuals have been elected by acclamation as the CAIAC Executive for the period 2009-2011:

President: Holger Hoos, UBC
Vice-President: Nathalie Japkowicz, University of Ottawa
Secretary: Philippe Langlais, Universite de Montr?al
Treasurer: Malek Mouhoub, University of Regina

AI'09 will be held in Kelowna, British Columbia from May 25-27, 2009. For more information, including the call for papers, see the AI'09 website here.

Dear CAIAC members,

As many of you know, we announced a contest in April 2008 to have a new logo designed for the society. Due to the small number of entries received, the CAIAC Executive has decided to reopen this competition, with a new deadline of July 18, 2008. Please find the revised contest announcement below. We hope that you will help us in distributing this as widely as possible. In particular, we believe that students will be a very good source of ideas, and we would ask you to consider forwarding this to students at your institutions.

Please note that a PDF poster is also available here. If you would be willing to print a few copies of this poster and post them throughout your departments, offices, etc., it would be much appreciated.

Thank you for your support.