Cross-Cutting Challenges (CCC)

The goal of the set of CCC sessions is to come together to focus on interdisciplinary challenges (“themes”) calling for united solutions from the haptics community. Drawn from an open solicitation, the selected themes will feature keynote talks and interactive discussions delivered by experts from science, engineering, and design. Theme Proposals are due by December 23, 2020 while Keynote and Interactive Discussion Proposals are due by February 22, 2021 after the selected themes have been announced. The organizers whose theme proposals are selected will champion their theme and work closely with the Cross-Cutting Challenges Chair in organizing the sessions. The theme organizers can also be Keynote speakers.

The concept
Structure: Each CCC is focused on a specific theme, which is developed with
▪ Keynote talks (2-4 per session, presented sequentially)
▪ Interactive discussions (about 8-12 per CCC), where presenters interact with a short talk or poster (either in person or virtually) with the participants and spark new ideas, projects, and teams through personal conversations.
▪ Ample unstructured discussion time to follow up and expand

Scope: So that participants may develop a holistic understanding of the theme topic, the set of presentations is expected to cover
▪ Recent prior work: synthesize developments in the theme area over a period of years, multiple research teams, and multiple technical disciplines
▪ Current work: relate ongoing work to the arc of research in the theme area
▪ Future ideas: envision forward-looking, emerging directions requiring interdisciplinary teams

Participation
▪ Principal investigators propose themes, organize sessions with the aid of the Cross-Cutting Challenges Chairs, deliver keynote presentations, host interactive discussions, and/or attend.
▪ Students and postdocs attend sessions and actively participate!

Points of contact
Claudio Pacchierotti (ccc@2021.worldhaptics.org or claudio.pacchierotti@irisa.fr)

Timeline
▪ Open discussion with CCC and Conference Chairs to discuss theme ideas (before Dec 2020)
▪ Submit theme proposals (by December 23, 2020)
▪ Themes announced (January, 2020)
▪ Submit individual keynote and interactive discussion proposals (by February 22, 2021)

Open discussions with the CCC Chair
Feel free to reach out to the CCC Chair (ccc@2021.worldhaptics.org) as soon as possible, so that you can discuss your ideas and prepare a strong proposal.

Selected Themes

After careful examination of the submissions, two CCC themes have been selected for presentation at WHC 2021.

Theme Submission Instructions

A theme is an interdisciplinary challenge calling for united solutions from the haptics community. The themes are solicited from the community of researchers in the field of haptics and beyond. While the traditional three areas covered in haptics relate to science, technology, and applications, the themes for the Cross-Cutting Challenges session will be selected such that researchers from each of the aforementioned areas can present in the same session. For example, a theme might relate to the next generation of mobile user interfaces and include elements from those working on surface haptics and shape and surface conformable displays, those working on the measurement of finger pad skin properties to surface interaction, those working on new dielectric polymer technologies, and those working on human-computer interaction concepts detailing how a consumer would utilize such capability. Examples of themes from 2018 and 2019 can be found at: http://2018.hapticssymposium.org/ccc1, http://2018.hapticssymposium.org/ccc2, and http://www.worldhaptics2019.org/program/ccc.

Submission materials: Specify (as a single PDF document) the theme title, the organizer(s) (from one to three), and up to 500 words regarding the details mentioned below of how that topic is important to society and involves multiple disciplines. Email your submission to ccc@2021.worldhaptics.org.

Themes: Themes will be selected by a committee drawn from both academia and industry. Proposals should thus be written to have a broad reach. In addition, a non-disciplinary title should be selected. The text should describe:
▪ Recent prior work: synthesize developments in the theme area over a period of years, multiple research teams, and multiple technical disciplines
▪ Current work: relate ongoing work to the arc of research in the theme area
▪ Future ideas: envision forward-looking, emerging directions requiring interdisciplinary teams

There is no need to form a team. That said, the proposal should provide the names of possible presenters, though it is not certain that these will be the final presenters, and you may not have even spoken to them about presenting. The idea is to show that people exist who could contribute to the proposed theme. It is also highly desired that topics span countries and even continents.

Furthermore, each theme session will ultimately involve about ten presentations, chosen taking into consideration their quality as well as their diversity in terms of background and focus. Two required presenter roles – outside the typical expertise of engineers – should be clearly delineated:

▪ Role 1 (Human interface): A human-computer interaction, human factors, or similar type of designer who is focused on the experience to be created for real end-users.
▪ Role 2 (Real end-user): A person who is a domain expert and a real end-user, such as a physician, nuclear reactor operator, physiologist, graphic designer, or video gamer.

Two other roles are highly recommended:
▪ Role 3 (Contextual history): An experienced expert from within the field who in the capacity of this theme would provide an overview of the history of technologies and efforts related to the theme. This person’s presentation will also avoid the presentation of overlapping backgrounds by multiple presenters coming after him or her.
▪ Role 4 (Industry): An industry person who is interested and currently engaged in activities that are in some way related to the theme topic.

For questions, please contact ccc@2021.worldhaptics.org.