Gesellschaft für Informatik

The Gesellschaft für Informatik (abbreviated as "GI" and translated as "German Informatics Society") is a German organization of approximately 22,000 computer science educators, researchers, and professionals.[1]

History

The Gesellschaft für Informatik was founded in Bonn, Germany, on September 16, 1969. Initially aimed primarily at researchers, it expanded in the mid-1970s to include also computer science practitioners, and in 1978 it founded its journal Informatik Spektrum to reach this broader audience.[2]

The Deutsche Informatik-Akademie in Bonn was founded in 1987 by the Gesellschaft für Informatik in order to provide seminars and continuing education for computer science professionals. In 1990, the Gesellschaft für Informatik contributed to the founding of the International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science (since renamed as the Leibniz Center for Informatics) at Dagstuhl; since its founding, Schloss Dagstuhl has become a major center for international academic workshops.[2]

In 1983, the Gesellschaft für Informatik became a member society of the International Federation for Information Processing, taking over the role of representing Germany from the Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Rechenanlagen. In 1989, it joined the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies.[2]

Activities

The Gesellschaft für Informatik maintains a large number of committees, special interest groups, and working groups, organized into special interest groups on the theory of computation, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, software engineering, human computer interaction, databases, technical informatics, graphics and information visualization, business informatics, legal aspects of computing, computer science education, social computing, and computer security.[2][3] The theoretical computing science section of the GI is a union of several interest groups within the GI and represents the German side in the organisation of the conference STACS.[4]

In addition to Informatik Spektrum, the journal of the society, most of its special interest groups maintain their own journals. Overall the society has approximately 40 regular publications, and it sponsors a similar number of conferences and events annually.[2] Many of these conferences have their proceedings published in the GI's book series, Lecture Notes in Informatics, which also publishes Ph.D. thesis abstracts and research monographs.[5]

The society maintains 30 regional groups, in cooperation with the German chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery.[2][6]

Every two years, the Gesellschaft für Informatik awards the Konrad Zuse Medal to an outstanding German computer science researcher.[2][7] It also offers prizes for the best Ph.D. thesis, for computer science education, for practical innovations, and for teams of student competitors.[8] Each year beginning in 2002, the GI has elected a small number of its members as fellows, its highest membership category.[9]

References

  1. ↑ At a glance, retrieved 2014-08-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Schwarz, Ernst (1996), "The German Informatics Society", in Zemanek, H., 36 Years of IFIP, International Federation for Information Processing.
  3. ↑ GI Special interest groups, retrieved 2012-03-09.
  4. ↑ Fachausschuss Theoretische Informatik, retrieved 2012-03-12
  5. ↑ GI-Edition Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI) (in German), retrieved 2012-03-09.
  6. ↑ GI/ACM - Regionalgruppen (in German), retrieved 2012-03-09.
  7. ↑ Konrad-Zuse-Medaille, GI (in German), retrieved 2012-03-09.
  8. ↑ Awards and prizes, GI, retrieved 2012-03-09.
  9. ↑ GI Fellows (in German), retrieved 2012-03-09.

External links