Final Extension of Paper Submission Deadline

May 5th, 2026 Daniela Lopez de Luise
Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are all doing well.

Due to the many requests received, we are pleased to announce a further extension of the paper submission deadline for IEEE METAVERSE 2026 (https://swc-ieee-2026.github.io/metaverse/).

The new and final deadline for paper submission is now May 15, 2026.

IEEE METAVERSE 2026 will take place in Rende, Italy, on September 7–11, 2026, as part of the IEEE Smart World Congress 2026. The conference aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working on the latest advances in metaverse technologies, systems, and applications.

Topics of interest include, among others, metaverse computing infrastructures, networking and connectivity, XR technologies, advanced interaction and multimodal interfaces, AI-driven 3D modeling and content creation, real-time rendering, security, privacy and trust, blockchain and digital assets, intelligent systems, and legal, ethical, and societal aspects of the metaverse.

The conference welcomes full papers (6 pages), short papers (4 pages), and poster/demo papers (2 pages). All accepted and presented papers will be submitted for publication in IEEE Xplore.

Best regards,

GENEA Challenge 2026 call for participation

May 5th, 2026 Daniela Lopez de Luise
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Call for participation: GENEA Challenge 2026 on speech-driven gesture generation Challenge period: Until June 28 Location: Interactive Social Agents Workshop @ ECCV 2026, Malmö, Sweden Website: https://genea-workshop.github.io/2026/challenge/ *********************************************************************

Motivation

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It is difficult to reproduce co-speech gesture-generation systems trained by other people, and each publication often uses its own evaluation methodology that often deviates from best practices. This makes it difficult to assess the state of the art in the field.

To better compare and understand methods for gesture generation and evaluation, we are continuing the GENEA (Generation and Evaluation of Non-verbal Behaviour for Embodied Agents) challenges, previously run in 2020, 2022, and 2023, wherein gesture-generation approaches from different authors are evaluated side by side on a high-quality avatar in a set of large-scale crowdsourced studies. 

Held in conjunction with the Interactive Social Avatars workshop at ECCV 2026, this year’s challenge invites submissions of both novel models and previously published systems. New research may be submitted as a formal workshop paper, while published systems should be accompanied by a structured technical description document.

Data and tasks

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The challenge will be using the Seamless Interaction dataset from Meta FAIR. The challenge will perform four evaluations:

  1. Core task 1: Motion realism

  2. Core task 2: Speech-gesture alignment

  3. Optional task 1: Semantic appropriateness for a specific spoken word (using the Seamless Interaction spoken gesture game subset)

  4. Optional task 2: Dyadic appropriateness for/alignment to interlocutor behaviour

The evaluations will be based on the methodologies of prior challenges and the recent GENEA Leaderboard paper (CVPR Findings 2026). Challenge submissions will also be placed on the ongoing GENEA living leaderboard, which will add a new leaderboard on the Seamless Interaction dataset following this challenge.

Timeline

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Apr. 15 – Official challenge soft launch

June 21 – Test-set inputs released to participants

June 28 – Deadline for participants to submit generated motion

July 10 – Evaluation results released to participants

July 15 – Paper submission deadline

Aug. 3 – Author notifications

Aug. 8 – Camera-ready paper deadline

Sept. 8 or 9 – Challenge presentations at ECCV Workshop

Registration

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To register for the challenge, please follow this link:

https://forms.gle/MhorH9X3PmLsbQ5e8

Submission format

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Challenge participants are required to make sure that there is a reproducible description of their system available, so that everyone can learn from the challenge by connecting what was done to the resulting system performance. We provide three pathways to do this:

  1. Submit a full, 8-page paper for publication at the ECCV workshop

  2. Submit a 4-page non-archival technical report, enabling authors to publish a full paper of their work at another conference of their choice

  3. Participants that enter a previously published/described method into the challenge may submit a 1-page non-archival extended abstract that describe all changes made to train their system for the challenge

We look forward to seeing your contributions to the challenge!

Organising committee

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Rajmund Nagy – KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Hendric Voß – Bielefeld University, Germany

Mihail Tsakov – Independent researcher, the Netherlands

Teodor Nikolov – Motorica AB, Sweden

Silvia Arellano García – KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Taras Kucherenko – SEED, Electronic Arts, Sweden

Youngwoo Yoon – ETRI, South Korea

Gustav Eje Henter – KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden / Motorica AB, Sweden

Questions about the challenge can be sent to genea-challenge@googlegroups.com.

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DeepLearn 2026: early registration May 22

May 5th, 2026 Daniela Lopez de Luise
13th INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ON DEEP LEARNING

DeepLearn 2026

Orléans, France

July 20-24, 2026

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Co-organized by:

University of Orléans

Centre Val de Loire Doctoral College

Institute for Research Development, Training and Advice – IRDTA
Luxembourg/London

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Early registration: May 22, 2026

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SCOPE:

DeepLearn 2026 will be a research training event with a global scope aiming at updating participants on the most recent advances in the critical and fast developing area of deep learning. Previous events were held in Bilbao, Genova, Warsaw, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Guimarães, Luleå, Bournemouth, Bari, and Porto.

Deep learning is a branch of artificial intelligence covering a spectrum of current frontier research and industrial innovation that provides more efficient algorithms to deal with large-scale data in a huge variety of environments: computer vision, neurosciences, speech recognition, language processing, human-computer interaction, drug discovery, biomedicine and healthcare, medical image analysis, recommender systems, advertising, fraud detection, robotics, games, business and finance, biotechnology, physics and astrophysics, biometrics, communications, climate sciences, geographic information systems, signal processing, genomics, materials design, video technology, social systems, earth and sustainability, mathematical proofs, etc. etc.

The field is also raising a number of relevant questions about efficiency and robustness of the algorithms, explainability, transparency, interpretability, risks and safety, as well as important ethical concerns at the frontier of current knowledge that deserve careful multidisciplinary discussion.

Most deep learning subareas will be displayed and main challenges identified through 16 four-hour and a half courses, 2 keynote lectures, 1 round table, and a hackathon competition among participants. Renowned academics and industry pioneers will lecture and share their views with the audience. The organizers are convinced that outstanding speakers will attract the brightest and most motivated students. Face to face interaction and networking will be main ingredients of the event. It will be also possible to fully participate in vivo remotely.

ADDRESSED TO:

Graduates, postgraduates and industry practitioners will be typical profiles of participants. However, there are no formal pre-requisites for attendance in terms of academic degrees, hence people less or more advanced in their career will be welcome as well.

Since there will be a variety of levels, specific knowledge background may be assumed for some of the courses.

Overall, DeepLearn 2026 is addressed to students, researchers and practitioners who want to keep themselves updated about recent developments and future trends. All will surely find it fruitful to listen to and discuss with major researchers, industry leaders and innovators.

VENUE:

DeepLearn 2026 will take place in Orléans, located in the heart of the Loire Valley, which was declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site in 2000. The venue will be:

University of Orléans
Faculty of Law, Economics and Management
11 rue de Blois
45100 Orléans, France

STRUCTURE:

3 courses will run in parallel during the whole event. Participants will be able to freely choose the courses they wish to attend as well as to move from one to another.

All lectures will be videorecorded. Participants will be able to watch them again for 45 days after the event.

An open session will give participants the opportunity to present their own work in progress in 5 minutes. Also companies will be able to present their industrial developments for 10 minutes.

The school will include a hackathon, where participants will be able to work in teams to tackle several machine learning challenges.

Full live online participation will be possible. The organizers highlight, however, the importance of face to face interaction and networking in this kind of research training event.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Yingbin Liang (Ohio State University), Convergence Theory: How Fast Do Discrete Diffusion Models Generate?

Le Song (Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence), Towards AI-Driven Digital Organism: A System of Multiscale Foundation Models for Biology

PROFESSORS AND COURSES:

Nitesh Chawla (University of Notre Dame), [intermediate] Synthetic Data Generation and Learning from Imbalanced Data: From SMOTE to LLMs

Jianfei Chen (Tsinghua University), [intermediate] Efficient Large Model Training and Inference

Yuejie Chi (Yale University), [introductory/intermediate] Statistical and Algorithmic Foundations of Reinforcement Learning

Bo Han (Hong Kong Baptist University), [introductory/intermediate] Trustworthy Machine Learning from Data to Models

Jiawei Han (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), [intermediate] Structure-Guided, Theme-Based Knowledge Discovery with Large Language Models

Mingyi Hong (University of Minnesota), [intermediate] Bilevel Optimization: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications in Machine Learning and Foundation Models

Cho-Jui Hsieh (University of California Los Angeles), [intermediate/advanced] Optimizers for Large Language Model Training

Furong Huang (University of Maryland), [advanced] Generative AI Agents

Tara Javidi (University of California San Diego), [intermediate] Active Physical Intelligence: Integrated Multimodal Sensing, Controlled Inference, and Spatio-Temporal Attention

Yan Liu (University of Southern California), [intermediate] Time Series Foundation Models: From Forecasting to Reasoning

Zhijin Qin (Tsinghua University), [intermediate/advanced] Token-Based Semantic Communications

Aarti Singh (Carnegie Mellon University), [intermediate] Human Centered AI: Challenges and Opportunities

Suvrit Sra (Technical University of Munich), [introductory/intermediate] Introduction to the Theory of Learning with Transformers

Ivor Tsang (A*STAR Centre for Frontier AI Research), [introductory/intermediate] Long-Horizon Agentic Intelligence

Ming-Hsuan Yang (University of California Merced), [advanced] Recent Advances in Multimodal Understanding and Generation

Tong Zhang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), [introductory/intermediate] Reinforcement Learning for Large Language Models

OPEN SESSION:

An open session will collect 5-minute voluntary oral presentations of work in progress by participants.

They should submit a half-page abstract containing the title, authors, and summary of the research to david@irdta.eu by July 12, 2026.

INDUSTRIAL SESSION:

A session will be devoted to 10-minute demonstrations of practical applications of deep learning in industry.

Companies interested in contributing are welcome to submit a 1-page abstract containing the program of the demonstration and the logistics needed. People in charge of the demonstration must register for the event.

Abstracts have to be submitted to david@irdta.eu by July 12, 2026.

HACKATHON:

A hackathon will take place, where participants can voluntarily work in teams to tackle several machine learning challenges. They will be coordinated by Professor Sergei V. Gleyzer (University of Alabama). The challenges will be released 2 weeks before the beginning of the school. A jury will judge the submissions and the winners of each challenge will be announced by the end of August 2026. The winning teams will receive a modest monetary prize and the runners-up will get a certificate.

SPONSORS:

Companies/institutions/organizations willing to be sponsors of the event can download the sponsorship leaflet from

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Karim Abed-Meraim (Orléans, local co-chair)
Sergei V. Gleyzer (Tuscaloosa, hackathon chair)
Meryem Jabloun (Orléans, local co-chair)
Carlos Martín-Vide (Tarragona, program chair)
Santiago Montes (Tarragona, webpage)
Sara Morales (Luxembourg, finances)
Florian Nowicki (Orléans, social networks)
Philippe Ravier (Orléans, local chair)
David Silva (London, organization chair)

REGISTRATION:

It has to be done at

The selection of 6 courses requested in the registration template is only tentative and non-binding. For logistical reasons, it will be helpful to have an estimation of the respective demand for each course.

Since the capacity of the venue is limited, registration requests will be processed on a first come first served basis. The registration period will be closed and the on-line registration tool disabled when the capacity of the venue will have got exhausted. It is highly recommended to register prior to the event.

FEES:

Fees comprise access to all program activities and lunches.

There are several early registration deadlines. Fees depend on the registration deadline.

The fees for on site and for online participation are the same.

ACCOMMODATION:

Accommodation suggestions are available at

CERTIFICATE:

A certificate of successful participation will be delivered indicating the number of hours of academic activities (40). This should be sufficient for those participants who plan to request ECTS recognition from their home university.

QUESTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Université d’Orléans

Collège Doctoral Centre-Val de Loire

Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Institute for Research Development, Training and Advice – IRDTA, Luxembourg/London

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CFP Special Track on Advancing Inclusive and Accessible Technologies – ACM GoodIT 2026

May 5th, 2026 Daniela Lopez de Luise
Special Track on Advancing Inclusive and Accessible Technologies


in conjunction with ACM 6th International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (ACM GoodIT 2026), 2-4 September 2026, Pisa, Italy

Link GoodIT 2026: https://goodit2026.di.unipi.it/

Link Special Track: https://sites.google.com/view/advancing-inclusive-tech/home


Theme and Scope

Modern devices and technologies can represent a digital barrier for users with disabilities, but they can be exploited to become enabling tools for them. Accessibility of devices and technologies is a critical topic to allow inclusion of all users, especially due to the European laws that impose accessibility for new products and the definition of an updated version of WCAG (Web Accessibility Guidelines). This track will invite scientists, engineers, and decision-makers from government, industry, and academia to present technical papers on their research and development results in areas of accessibility, including but not limited to the following topics:

  • Accessible devices/assistive technologies: assistive technologies refer to all the assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities that enable users to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish. On the one hand, the widespread diffusion of new devices and technologies stimulates researchers to find and apply new solutions to make them accessible to anyone. On the other hand, experiences in accessibility-related fields have been exploited and have provided benefits to users equipped with non-conventional devices when they emerged in the market.

  • Accessible solutions for e-learning, e-commerce, e-banking, etc.: e-services and content often require specific technologies, being bound by specific constraints when accessed by people with disabilities equipped with assistive technologies. Specific interaction modalities may affect interactive service access, while richness and quantity of content may affect the users’ ability to process information.

  • Accessible content: e-books, accessible TV, accessible broadcasting, etc.

  • Accessibility of games: digital games often pose complex accessibility challenges due to multimodal interaction, real-time dynamics, and immersive environments; research in this area includes adaptive gameplay mechanics, multimodal feedback (e.g., haptic, audio, and visual enhancements), AI-driven difficulty and interface personalization, accessible VR/AR gaming experiences, and inclusive game design frameworks that support players with sensory, motor, cognitive, and neurodivergent conditions while preserving engagement and playability.

  • AI for Accessibility: AI can be exploited both for personalization (i.e., integrating AI-based personalization to support specific and special needs) and “enabler” (i.e., exploiting LLM to support the creation of accessible applications).

This track can interest many researchers since it would give the chance to face a wide range of topics, i.e., web or mobile technologies, with different points of view, taking into account specific technological constraints and digital barriers. It is well-known that the so-called “curb cut effect” can be applied to any technological and digital context (in terms of devices, content, and services): technologies that were originally meant to benefit people with disabilities can help any other users. Moreover, the history and the evolution of several technologies have been influenced and/or motivated by the special needs of people with disabilities.

Submission Guidelines

We would like to invite authors to submit papers on research in the Accessibility area, with particular emphasis on assessing the current state of the art and identifying future directions. Original papers addressing any of the listed topics of interest (or related topics) will be considered. 

The papers should follow the new ACM format (https://authors.acm.org/proceedings/production-information/taps-production-workflow). Submissions must be no more than 9 pages (ACM double column format). The indicated paper length includes references, tables, and figures. Documents with a length disproportionate to their contribution will be rejected. Each submitted paper will undergo a rigorous single-blind review process involving three evaluations each. Accepted papers will be included in the ACM GoodIT 2026 proceedings and published in the ACM digital library.

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalisation; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.

Important Update on ACM’s new Open Access Publishing Model

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70–75%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please refer to https://libraries.acm.org/acmopen/open-participants.

Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

  • $250 APC for ACM/SIG members

  • $350 APC for non-members

This represents a 65% discount funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.

Important Dates

  • Full Paper Submission: 17 May 2026

  • Notification: 7 June 2026

  • Camera-Ready: 21 June 2026

  • Conference: 2-4 September 2026

Organization

  • Ombretta Gaggi, University of Padua

  • Silvia Mirri, University of Bologna

  • Michael Paciello, AudioEye

  • Catia Prandi, University of Bologna

  • Chiara Ceccarini, University of Bologna

  • Mirko Franco, University of Padua

Submission Portal

Please submit your contribution through our online portal available at https://goodit2026.hotcrp.com/. 

Contact Us

For any inquiries regarding the call for papers, please contact gaggi@math.unipd.it. 

We look forward to your contributions and to seeing you at the ACM GoodIT 2026 Conference!

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Athens Institute – 2026 Mathematics Conference in Athens, Greece

May 1st, 2026 Daniela Lopez de Luise

20th Annual International Conference on Mathematics:

Teaching, Theory & Applications

29-30 June & 1-3 July 2026 | Athens, Greece

Dear Colleague,

I would like to bring to your attention the organization of the 20th Annual International Conference on Mathematics: Teaching, Theory & Applications, taking place on 29-30 June & 1-3 July 2026, in Athens, Greece.

You are more than welcome to submit a proposal for presentation by 12 May 2026.

If you require additional information, please let me know, and our administration will provide it, including the conference website and abstract submission form.

Academic Members Responsible for the Conference

  • Dr. Codruta Simona Stoica, Head, Mathematics & Statistics Unit, Athens Institute & Professor and Vice-Rector, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, Romania
  • Dr. Gohar Marikyan, Deputy Director, Sciences Division, Athens Institute & Professor, SUNY Empire State University, USA

My best regards,
Dr Nicholas Pappas
Professor (Retired), Sam Houston University, USA
Vice President of the Athens Institute

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