Call for Proposals
CHI 2017 Symposium on HCI Across Borders
Denver, Colorado – May 6 & 7, 2017

About the Workshop

The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community at CHI is increasingly embracing research being performed on topics and in regions that have been under-studied in the past. To promote these efforts, the Development Consortium Workshop titled HCI Across Borders was held at CHI 2016 in San Jose. With generous support from SIGCHI and in collaboration with Facebook and Google, it was attended by 70+ researchers from 20 countries across the globe, with some of these countries being represented at CHI for the first time. The goal of this Consortium was to build community and invite collaborations across borders on themes of interest to the participants – those actively involved in international HCI projects, with most of them conducting research in understudied areas and with underrepresented individuals and communities across the world.

This year marks another milestone — this event has grown to be a CHI Symposium. Our goal for 2017 is to build on the efforts from the Development Consortium at CHI 2016 and grow the community working in the area of HCI Across Borders (HCIxB). We aim to provide an opportunity for interested researchers to come together as a community, to improve the visibility of their work, and to bring to the larger HCI community a greater awareness of the challenges that plague international research, particularly research that takes place in resource-constrained settings.

Participation

We solicit participation from HCI researchers and practitioners across the globe who work with underserved, underrepresented, and/or under-resourced communities. We particularly invite participants who are keen to explore collaborations across borders. “Borders”, in this context, include geographic boundaries, but also boundaries of other kinds, such as disciplines, methodologies, ideologies, and more. Research areas of focus can be diverse, including but not limited to learning, global health, crisis informatics, civic engagement, mobile banking, etc.
While this is not an exhaustive list, examples of topics/themes of submission might include:

* Leveraging participatory design and co-design approaches
* Factoring cultural sensitivities in the design of new technologies and/or HCI methods
* Designing to accommodate power differentials in communities
* Devising innovative techniques for engaging new technology users
* Designing for sustainability
* Studying the intersection of HCI and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
* And more!

For example, projects presented at the Consortium last year included:

* Emotional Wellbeing: Technology for Mental Health in Developing Countries
* HCI, Forced Migration & Refugees: Collaborations across Borders and Fields
* ICT Intervention for Agricultural Development: Exploring Prospects for Pakistani Farmers
* Cuba Intercambio: Cultural and Information Exchange for Cuba
* Online Learning Across Diverse Low-Resource Indian Contexts
* Cognitive Modeling for Illiteracy Eradication
* Mobile Technology-Based Supports for Prenatal Care Among the Ngäbe in Panama

Submissions

Please submit a proposal (3-5 pages in the CHI Extended Abstracts format) starting now and before April 15th, 2017. You will receive a decision within 15 days of your submission so you can plan your registration and travels (including visa arrangements) accordingly.

All submissions will be reviewed by the organizers and a program committee. They will be selected in accordance with their potential to contribute to the Symposium and to foster discussion. Accepted submissions will be available on our website before the conference. Authors of accepted submissions will also be invited to present posters of their proposals at CHI (although not mandatory).

Please submit your PDFs at https://hcixb17.hotcrp.com/. Note that we will accept contributions until the limit on the number of attendees is reached, which may be before the ultimate deadline.

Bursaries

We are working on obtaining funding to pay travel expenses (or at least a portion thereof) for attendees in need. Please note that CHI guidelines require at least one author of each accepted submission to attend and be registered for the Symposium.

Organizers

Neha Kumar, Georgia Tech (USA)
Susan Dray, Dray & Associates (USA)
Christian Sturm, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
Nithya Sambasivan, Google (USA)
Laura S. Gaytan-Lugo, University of Colima (Mexico)
Leonel Morales, Francisco Marroquin University (Guatemala)
Negin Dahya, University of Washington (USA)
Nova Ahmed, North South University (Bangladesh)

Contact

For updates, please check:
http://hcixb.org
Email us your questions at:
admin@hcixb.org