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There have been critiques of the placement of CHI2024 in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We view them as predominantly concerned with a) indigenous Hawaiian advocacy organizations have called for a decolonization of the islands, which includes eliminating the harm done by hosting academic conferences, and b) the environmental impact of a conference far from many population centers.

We appreciate the passion and commitment of our community members who actively advocate for environmental and anti-colonial justice. The CHI steering committee has learned a lot about these issues from the arguments being made, and we appreciate the opportunity to improve our understanding of these important issues.

This post is intended to explain the process behind CHI site selection more broadly, and the decision to be in Hawai’i more specifically.

CHI Site Selection

A much longer version of the process behind site selection is available here: https://chi.acm.org/what-is-the-site-selection-process-for-chi-conferences/ 

Typically, CHI site selection starts 5+ years before the intended date of the conference, with contracts being signed with venues 2-3 years before the conference. Several years ago, SIGCHI leadership decided on a global rotation plan for CHI, with a rotation between North America, Europe, East Asia and more recently an option to include other locations outside of that cycle.

For each of these areas of the world, we send out bids to different cities that have a convention center that can accommodate the needs for CHI. Some of these are based on format – a convention center with an exhibit hall and 20+ parallel session rooms is extremely hard to find and does limit the number of venues that can accommodate our needs. Some of the parameters are based on our commitment to the community – including accessibility of the venue, safety of the city/nation for our members, and cost. It’s hard to find centers that are the perfect blend of these characteristics, but our site selection team considers them all, as do all SC members and EC members when the choices are presented to them for ratification.

Another consideration is how the location either inconveniences groups of attendees, or possibly supports them. We understand that the strategy of moving the conference every year to try and spread around inconvenient locations is sometimes unsatisfactory, and proposals we’ve been discussing are a more limited rotation and engaging with SIGCHI’s Sustainability Committee on modelling carbon costs. In general, a site is selected and a contract signed well before we start to recruit volunteers to run the conference. In other words, the organizers of any year’s conference typically have no influence on where the conference is.

How Hawai’i was selected

As far back as 2015 when CHI was in Seoul, there was a discussion of Hawai’i as a North American location that would help bridge future conferences in East Asia and keep invigorating the Pacific Rim CHI communities. If you’re in China, Japan, South Korea, Australia or other active HCI communities in that region, CHI has been especially tough location-wise for the past 20 years. A decision was made to try and support these communities, and Hawai’i was chosen for the 2020 conference as a bridge to the 2021 conference that was to return to Asia. 

As we all know, CHI2020 had to be canceled due to the global COVID pandemic. The contractors we have in Honolulu were very decent and understanding about forgiving contractual items. What could have been a financial disaster was mitigated due to their support. One reason we decided to go back to both Hawai’i and, later, Japan was to support vendors who had supported us in one of our most vulnerable moments.

Additionally, we did look at other sites for CHI2024, with our rotation plan being to place somewhere in western North America. We investigated San Diego, but they did not have dates available. Given the long time frame of assessing venues, the process for figuring out a location for CHI2024 happened during the height of the COVID pandemic. Travel restrictions made it difficult to assess some other locations, but working with the ACM we found that other conference centers (e.g. Phoenix) would not support the CHI format. Site selection during a pandemic is not straightforward, so our familiarity with the Hawai’i Convention Center, along with their previous support for us, made them the optimal remaining choice. Familiarity is important in this in that we have made a commitment to the physical accessibility of a location, and being unable to visit locations made it hard to assess multiple locations on that dimension.

Another reason a decision was made to repeat the Hawai’i to Japan sequence in 2024 and 2025 was for the same reasons they had been picked in the first place – to support our global communities.

Consequences of moving or canceling CHI2024

As we describe above, contracts for venues take years to develop. If we started right now, we might be able to move the conference two years out. The only option for CHI2024 would be to cancel the in-person conference altogether or to have an online only event.

The consequences of that would be devastating for CHI and for other SIGCHI conferences. There is no “force majeure” reason to cancel the conference at this time. We would have to pay the full contract amounts to both the venue and the hotels with which we have contracts. This could be two million dollars (or more) of loss to SIGCHI. What those millions go to otherwise would be support for members not just in CHI, but across all SIGCHI conferences. CHI money *is* SIGCHI money, and we all share the same bank account at the end of the day. This would jeopardize travel grants, money for special projects, support for struggling research communities and other things that SIGCHI does so ably to support a broad range of scholars.

CHI2024 organizers deserve support

Many volunteers in our community work hard on service to produce our proceedings and organize our conferences. Reviewing, chairing, SVing, organizing workshops – it takes a broad array of us to make the SIGCHI community work. We speak from experience when we say running a CHI is one of the weightiest service responsibilities there is. We ask for grace for the organizers of CHI2024, and a culture of care for our fellow volunteers. We also recognize that some of our community members will choose to not submit to or attend CHI 2024 because it is in Hawai’i. For these members of our community, we encourage you to consider one of SIGCHI’s other 25 conferences as a venue to submit your work.

Moving towards the Future of CHI

The CHI Steering Committee is listening to the concerns that have been raised, and we are confident that these concerns WILL have an effect. Each year we find new parameters that inform site selection. Sustainability and anti-colonial justice will surely join these issues as something that shapes the future of the conference. It is frustrating when a big ship like CHI can’t turn on a dime, but it can and will turn and we appreciate the community’s efforts in helping steer us to a better future.

Call closes 20 September 2023

TL;DR: The CHI Steering Committee (SC) is seeking expressions of interest (self nomination or nomination of others) for people interested in serving the CHI community in future key leadership roles: CHI conference General Chairs and Technical Program Chairs for CHI2026 and beyond. Note: An open call will be repeated each year.

CHI Conference Leadership 

We invite Expressions of Interest from people, or nominations of people, who are willing to take on CHI conference leadership roles of General Chair (GC) and/or Technical Program Chair (TPC) for CHI2026 or future years*. These roles require significant organisational involvement with prior CHI Conferences, or chairing other SIGCHI conferences, and managing significant budgets or managing the technical program of a conference. 

Work in these roles is substantial. Tasks are expected to start ~2+ years prior to the appointed conference, with more intensive work in the year leading up the conference, and wrap-up tasks in the 6 months beyond the conference. See below for role-specific information.

Note: Given the scale and complexity of the CHI conference, and needing to plan multiple years in advance, the SC will have already made decisions related to geographic location and venue before the appointment of GCs and TPCs for that year. These decisions are publicly announced at the CHI two years in advance but will be shared confidentially with invited chairs as input to their decision making on whether to accept the role or not. For CHI 2026, the conference is intended to be held in Europe, according to the CHI Conference location rotation schedule. 

GENERAL CHAIR: 

The key overall responsibilities for General Chairs include:

• Create and lead a diverse team to deliver the organisational aspects for the conference
• Set the overall conference direction, e.g., deciding the conference theme, attendance modality, etc in line with the ‘Core to CHI’ policy and the strategic directions from the CHI Steering Committee
• Manage the CHI conference budget in conjunction with ACM
• Ensure that appropriate SIGCHI policies are adhered to in delivering the overall conference experience
• Liaise with the logistics contractor (currently Executive Events) to oversee all logistical and organisational details
• Work effectively with the Technical Program Chairs and other organisation committee chairs (not under TPC oversight) to deliver the conference experience

The key criteria to serve as CHI General Chair include:

• Senior level or significant involvement with prior or upcoming CHI Conference
  Organizing Committees; and/or experience as a senior organiser of a SIGCHI-related conference and managing budgets
• Regular participation in the CHI conference as an author and attendee
• Ideally support from employer for the time needed for the role

TECHNICAL PROGRAM CHAIR: 

The key overall responsibilities for Technical Program Chairs include:

• Create and lead a diverse team to deliver the technical content for the conference
• Liaise with ACM to oversee the publication process
• Manage the schedule and virtual content of the technical program of the conference 
• Manage the allocation of venue space and layouts 
• Ensure that appropriate regulations and procedures are adhered to in delivering the technical content
• Work effectively with the General Chairs to deliver the schedule for conference

The key criteria to serve as CHI Technical Program Chair include:

• Senior level or significant involvement with prior or upcoming CHI Conference
  Organizing Committees; and/or significant experience in the technical program organising committee of a SIGCHI-related conference 
• Understanding of the systems and tools used in the SIGCHI publication process: TAPS, PCS, Templates, etc.
• Regular participation in the CHI conference as an author and attendee
• Ideally support from employer for the time needed for the role.

PROCESS: 

Submission of Expression of Interest / Nominations:

You can nominate as an individual or as part of a pair GC or TPC pair, or as a combined GC and TPC team or part thereof. Each person will need to submit their own EOI and name their team partners/roles.

Expressions of Interest (EOIs) will include a short biography along with a brief statement of the specific role you are interested in, how you meet the criteria noted above, and preferred future CHI year(s) in which you would be willing to serve. 

Nomination of another person should also address the same content, and in addition make clear that the person has agreed in advance to being nominated.

Please fill out this short Survey Monkey form by 20 September 2023.

Decision process:

The decisions about future CHI leadership teams will be made by the CHI Steering Committee. The EOIs will serve as one set of inputs to the decision making process, along with other considerations e.g., about diversity of gender, geography, institution etc, mix of expertise, and location-specific needs.  

Towards this process, the SC and its SC Future Chairs and Volunteer Development Director:

• Will help publicise the call for Expressions of Interest
• May identify and approach potential candidates to directly to assess their interest 
• Will review all potential candidates and Expressions of Interest
• Will create a short-list for the CHI SC chair to take to the SIGCHI Executive Committee for final approval – the short list will be based on:
  • Record of SIGCHI conference leadership
  • Record of CHI involvement
  • Response from the annual open calls
  • Suggestions gathered from SC, OC, and EC
  • Conference location**
  • Team diversity
• Will make formal invitations once approved***

Will follow relevant SIGCHI and ACM policies, e.g., as laid out in the  SIGCHI Bylaws, the SIGCHI Conflict of Interest Policy, and the ACM Conflict of Interest Policy, along with guidelines to check the ACM Violations Database

* CHI2025 leadership team is already in place.
** Note that CHI GC and TPC selections occur after the conference location has been selected. However this is still confidential until it is publicly announced at the CHI two years prior. Selections will therefore also be mindful of the local and diasporic communities of researchers connected to that conference location. For CHI 2026, the conference is intended to be held in Europe, according to the CHI Conference location rotation schedule.
*** Invited persons will be informed confidentially about the conference location to include as part of their own decision making process