About the ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman Award

The ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman (OCCW) Award recognizes women professionals who have made fundamental, innovative, impactful contributions to the computing field primarily working in India. In addition to acknowledging such contributions, the ACM India Council also believes that the award will bring international visibility to the contribution, provide role models for women in computing from India and nurture the candidates for future international recognition.

The award carries a prize of ₹7 lakhs (approximately USD $10,000). Financial support for this award is provided by Google.

Deadline

Nominations are due by 31 August, 2022. The recipient will be announced by 31 December 2022.

Eligibility

• The candidate must be currently residing in India and the contributions being considered for the award must have been carried out primarily while working in India.
• The candidate can be from any walk of life in the broad field of computing, as understood in its general sense.
• The candidate need not be an Indian national.
• The candidate need not be a member of ACM.
• There is an age limit of 50 years for the candidate as of 1 January of the year of nomination. Accordingly, for the 2022 Award, the candidate’s date of birth must be 1 January 1972 or later.

Nominations

• No self-nomination is allowed.
• The nominator should be a recognized member of the computing community who has personal knowledge of the candidate’s contributions and can address the candidate's impact in the field of computing.
• The nominator must take prior consent of nominee before submitting the nomination. Further, it is expected that the nominator should not knowingly himself/herself be a nominee for the same award.
• Nominators will now be required to indicate whether they are aware of any action committed by the candidate that violates the ACM Code of Ethics and ACM’s Core Values. See the Policy for Honors Conferred by ACM Policy for Honors Conferred by ACM.
• The committee may choose to keep a nomination in consideration for a period of up to 3 years from first submission, provided other eligibility criteria are met; details of the nomination may be updated if a nomination from a previous year is considered in a subsequent year.

Evaluation Criteria

Lasting contribution to computing community through factors including:

• Research and innovation using computing methodology in core areas of computer science or interdisciplinary areas like genomics/computational biology, human-computer interaction, and
• Demonstrated impactful work in empowering and inspiring women in computing.

Timelines and Nature of the Award

• The award will consist of a plaque and a prize of ₹7 lakhs.
• The nominations deadline is 31 August, 2022 (11 pm IST) and the recipient would be announced by 31 December 2022..
• The award ceremony will be held during ACM India Annual Event in early February of the subsequent year. The awardee is expected to deliver a talk on their research contributions at the conference co-located with the Annual Event. The costs for the travel and stay will be borne by ACM India.
• In the steady state, we plan to follow the above timelines each year, with any adjustments based on the learnings from the previous years.

Submissions

Nominations for the award should be submitted using the online ACM India Award nomination form.

Submitted materials should explain the contribution in terms understandable to a non-specialist. Each nomination involves several components:

• Name, address, phone number, and email address of the nominator (person making the nomination).
• Name, address, and email address of the candidate (person being nominated). As a matter of policy, ACM India will neither reveal to the candidates who have nominated/endorsed them nor respond to any queries regarding a nomination once submitted.
• Suggested citation if the candidate is selected. This should be a concise statement (maximum of 25 words) describing the key technical or professional accomplishment for which the candidate merits this award. Note that the final wording for awardees will be at the discretion of the Selection Committee.
• 2-page nomination statement/executive summary addressing why the candidate should receive this award. This may describe the candidate's work in general, but should draw particular attention to the contributions that merit the award. Here are some representative (but not prescriptive) details which may be included in the statement:
  • Research work done with special focus on last 3-5 years
  • Publications in reputed journals/conferences
  • Breakthrough thinking or innovative solutions in areas of computing (computer science or interdisciplinary): hardware, software or research
  • Any patents in their name
  • Scientific impact of their work
  • Any of their work being used in commercial world and has business impact
  • Potential for revolutionary impact in their field in the near future
  • Any impact on their organisation or community of their work, including visible impact in empowering and inspiring women in computing
• Copy of the candidate's CV, listing publications, patents, honours, service contributions, etc.
• Supporting letters from 3 endorsers. A nominator cannot also be an endorser. Endorsers should be chosen to represent a range of perspectives and institutions and provide additional insights or evidence of the candidate's impact. Each letter must include the name, address, and telephone number of the endorser, and should focus on the accomplishments that the endorser can personally attest to and place in context. The nominator should collect these letters and bundle them for submission.

For questions on the above, please contact us at acmindia_occw@india.acm.org. ACM's conflict-of-interest guidelines apply to all award nominations.