How Can Artificial Life Help Solve Societal Challenges?

Artificial Life has historically been regarded by its adversaries as an academic “hobby” with little relation to real life. We feel that these days are past, as in fact, our interdisciplinary and constantly self-innovating discipline brings together a set of skills and perspectives with a unique potential to tackle some of the most pressing societal challenges of our times. The theme “How can Artificial Life help to solve Societal Challenges” will run through the conference in the shape of keynote presentations and satellite events that apply Artificial Life principles to research on sustainable technologies, bioremediation, urban development and environmental planning, alternative societies a.s.o.

But more than merely theming presentations, ALIFE2019 in Newcastle plans to revisit the very way academic conferences are run: a balanced amount of remote talks as well as broadcasting of presentations in order to reduce CO2 emissions, carbon-offset bursaries that allow participants to diminish their ecological footprint, locally sourced catering – these are just a few of the ideas that the organizers will explore, so that us academics can realize some of the change we are advocating for.

Workshop Proposals

The ALIFE 2019 workshops are intended to be forums to present and discuss new approaches, visions, or critical reflections within a research area. They provide an excellent opportunity to meet people with similar interests, to be exposed to cutting-edge research and to exchange ideas in an informal setting. The organizers of an accepted workshop are responsible for its coordination and its publicity (e.g., for sending out call for papers/abstracts), for collecting and reviewing the papers/abstracts, and for maintaining a website providing a list of ccepted talks. Workshops are open to all interested conference participants, unless specifically justified otherwise in the application. Workshops can allocate either one or two 1.5 hour time slots.

If accepted, ALIFE will provide the onsite logistics (seminar rooms, projectors, coffee breaks) and links from the main conference website. All other organizational issues — including separate review process and proceedings publication, if any — are taken care of by the workshop chairs. Therefore, any workshop-specific requests from participants should be exclusively addressed to them, not to the ALIFE committee. The internal organization of the satellite workshops and tutorials (website, paper submission, invited talks, proceedings, all deadlines except registration) is entirely left up to their respective organizers. Participation in workshops requires conference registration.

Tutorial Proposals

ALIFE 2019 tutorials will be presented by domain experts to cover current topics relevant to artificial life researchers and practitioners, such as introduction to state-of-the-art methods and software. Each tutorial slot will be 1.5 hours long. We encourage tutorial organizers to maintain a website that collects tutorial, demos and interactive material.

As for Workshops, ALIFE will provide the onsite logistics (seminar rooms, projectors, coffee breaks) and links from the main conference website. All other organizational issues are taken care of by the tutorial chairs. Therefore, any workshop-specific requests from participants should be exclusively addressed to them, not to the ALIFE committee. Participation in workshops requires conference registration.

Special Sessions

Special Sessions are part of the conference main program. They are dedicated to both established and emerging core concepts of the ALife agenda. Special sessions provide an excellent opportunity for researchers in the ALife community to shape parts of the conference programme by attracting high quality submissions, organizing session content and selecting session chairs.

Contributions to special sessions undergo the same peer review process as other submissions to the conference and will be included in the conference proceedings. There is no limit on the number of time slots allocated to a special session and their duration will instead be determined by the number of allocated contributions. Special sessions that do not attract a sufficient number of contributions will not take place.