CHI 2020

CHI 2020
Name	CHI 2020
Discipline	Human–computer interaction
Location	Honolulu, Hawaii
Country	United States
Organizer	Association for Computing Machinery
First	1982
Frequency	Annual

CHI 2020 CHI 2020 was the 38th annual conference of the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, where researchers, practitioners, and students from institutions worldwide gathered. The conference served as a focal point connecting work from laboratories and companies such as MIT Media Lab, Stanford University, Microsoft Research, Google Research, and Samsung Research with attendees from organizations including ACM SIGCHI, IEEE, Apple Inc., and IBM Research. The program showcased contributions spanning venues and communities represented by ACM Digital Library, CHI PLAY, UIST, CSCW, and DIS.

Overview

CHI 2020 was organized by ACM SIGCHI and hosted in Honolulu, bringing together delegates from universities like Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, and ETH Zurich as well as industry labs such as Facebook AI Research, Amazon Research, Nintendo Research, Sony CSL, and Adobe Research. The event aggregated content across peer-reviewed tracks and industry demonstrations associated with conferences like SIGGRAPH, NeurIPS, ICLR, KDD, and CHI PLAY. Plenary scheduling aligned with venues named after local sites and institutions such as Honolulu Convention Center, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and connections to regional partners including Hawaii TechWorks and Hawaiʻi Community Foundation.

Conference Program

The program featured a peer-reviewed technical papers track alongside panels, posters, demonstrations, and an industry program drawing submissions evaluated by committees with members from ACM SIGCHI, IEEE Computer Society, Royal Society, National Science Foundation, and European Research Council. Sessions included presentations influenced by methodologies from Alan Turing Institute, Wellcome Trust, Microsoft Research Cambridge, Bell Labs, and IBM Watson Research Center. Scheduling integrated keynote sessions, award ceremonies, and community events tied to repositories like GitHub, datasets from ImageNet, and tooling from TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Unity Technologies.

Keynotes and Awards

Keynote lectures were delivered by figures associated with institutions and works such as Irene Au (Google, Stanford University), Heather Knight (Disney Research), and representatives from NIH, World Health Organization, and Gates Foundation reflecting interdisciplinary reach. Awards presented included recognitions akin to ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award, and Best Paper honors judged by committees containing members from MIT, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University. Honorary mentions and best paper finalists referenced prior awardees from conferences like CHI 2019, CHI 2018, CSCW 2019, and UIST 2019.

Papers and Research Highlights

Published proceedings in the ACM Digital Library collected technical papers covering topics bridging systems and social dimensions, with contributions citing work from Sherry Turkle-influenced human studies, algorithmic perspectives linked to Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio traditions, and design approaches resonant with Don Norman and Julian Bleecker. Notable themes included ethics and fairness research intersecting with institutions like Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU, accessibility projects referencing World Health Organization standards, and tangible computing explorations related to MIT Media Lab prototypes. Studies reported empirical evaluations employing datasets and benchmarks popularized by ImageNet, COCO, and methods from OpenAI and DeepMind.

Workshops and Tutorials

The conference hosted workshops and tutorials organized by research groups from University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, EPFL, and NUS that taught skills using tools from Arduino, Raspberry Pi Foundation, Blender Foundation, Processing (programming language), and MATLAB. Topics ranged from participatory design influenced by IDEO and Frog Design practices to machine learning for interaction design drawing on curricula from Coursera, edX, and Udacity. Community-organized events connected with special interest groups like Women in Computer Science and initiatives resembling Black in AI and Latinx in AI.

Impact and Reception

The conference generated press and commentary in outlets and platforms analogous to The New York Times, Wired, The Verge, Nature, and Science and sparked discussions across academic networks including ResearchGate, arXiv, ORCID, and Google Scholar. Follow-up work built on CHI 2020 contributions in projects at MIT Media Lab, Microsoft Research labs, and start-ups spun out referencing accelerators like Y Combinator and Techstars. The event's community outcomes influenced subsequent meetings such as CHI 2021 and informed policy conversations at bodies resembling National Science Foundation and regional organizations including Hawaii State Legislature.

Category:Human–computer interaction conferences Category:Association for Computing Machinery events