A PROPOSAL
1. Location: Prague, Czech Republic
The central position of Prague in Europe makes the city
easily accessible by all means of transport. The town
itself is well known as a very attractive place for
visitors. The prices are still moderate, even though in
two years they might be well-compared to western
prices.
2. Conference venue:
Several possibilities offer themselves (with good
parking):
(i) the most at hand is the complex of buildings of the
Czech Technical University, located on a metro
line, 10 minutes by metro from the city centre, in
quiet surroundings; the complex has a big
auditorium (for plenary sessions) and a reasonable
number of smaller auditoria (for about 200 to 300
people), a good number of smaller lecture rooms
(for 70 to 100 people)
(ii) an alternative: the Congress Hall that will be
renovated before 2000 for the big session of the
International Monetary Fund in year 2000; this
would certainly be very convenient, but we have to
wait until they announce prices
(iii) there are other possibilities, too (e.g. a good
complex of the School of Agriculture at the
outskirts of the town, or the building of the
Faculty of law of Charles University in the centre
of the town), that can be investigated, if the two
we prefer will not be found appropriate
3. Accommodation (again, with good parking possibilities):
Hotels:
(i) For the first alternative:
two good (bigger) hotels in a walking distance
(one four star, one three star), a relatively
cheap but comfortable hotel (15 minutes by tram),
several smaller hotels nearby of different
levels; the venue is easily accessible from the
hotels in the centre of the city by metro (10
minutes)
(ii) For the second alternative:
nothing would be a problem
Dormitories: for both alternatives:
Charles University dormitories in a short
distance from both places (public transport in
Prague is quite good, and both locations are on
metro lines)
4. Local CL Community:
CL community in the Czech republic is relatively large,
both at Charles University in Prague (Institute of Formal
and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Mathematics and
Physics, headed by prof. Eva Hajicova, and the Institute of
Theoretical and Computational Linguistics, Faculty of
Philosophy, headed by assoc. prof. V. Petkevic; there is
also a special Institute of Czech National Corpus at the
Faculty of Philosophy headed by prof. F. Cermak), and
outside Prague (the Laboratory for Natural Language
Processing at the faculty of Computer Science at Masaryk
University in Brno, headed by assoc. prof. K. Pala; a speech
processing lab at the Universities in Plzen and Liberec).
The main organizer will be the Institute of Formal
and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Mathematics and
Physics, Charles University, Prague. The Institute currently
has three full professors (Sgall, Panevova, Hajicova), one
assistant professor (Hajic), and 6 assistants and research
workers, together with 17 PhD students.
5. Proposed Dates
At this point of time, any date chosen by the
executive committee is fine if known well in advance. The
dormitories would be easier to reserve if the conference
takes place after July 7th, but the end of June - beginning of July is
principally also possible.
The workshops/tutorials can be arranged before/after the dates of
the meeting, with the lodging as indicated above.
6. Meeting Space (space for plenary sessions, tutorials,
workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings)
As described above, all this can be accommodated in
either of the alternatives. The European Summer School in
Language, Logic and Information organized by our Institute
was held in the Technical University complex (alternative
(i)), with about 700 participants). The Congress Hall
(alternative (ii)) will certainly be equipped with
everything necessary, will have two big rooms and several
smaller rooms etc.
7. A/V equipment
The Technical University has very good equipment, and
the Congress Centre will be equipped luxuriously.
8. Food
The student canteen (mensa) will prepare meals
(lunches) for us, for a very low price, with a medium
quality. There are several restaurants of different price
levels in the surroundings of both sites. Vegetarian food
available.
9. Banquet
Banquest can be held (depending on the number of
expected participants) at some attractive place in Prague
(the choices range e.g. from the representative hall in the
historical building of Charles University to one of the big
rooms of the Municipal Hall, a perfect example of art
nouveaux). A concert also can be arranged.
10. Receptions
The welcome reception can be held in the dining room
of the mensa (if alternative (i) is chosen), which is 2
minutes walk from the main building where the registration
will be held; if alternative (ii) is chosen, the welcome
reception may be held in the Congress Centre.
11. Local Arrangements (chairs, committee, volunteer labor,
registration handling):
Local arrangement chair: Eva Hajicova
Local organizational committee chair: Kiril Ribarov
(a young and very effective researcher from the Institute of
Formal and Applied Linguistics, Charles University)
Members of the organizational committee (besides the
two named above): Alena Boehmova, Martin Cmejrek, Jan Hajic,
Barbora Hladka, Kveta Kralikova, Pavel Krbec, Ivana
Kruijffova, Roman Ondruska, Nino Peterek, Veronika Reznickova,
Marketa Stranakova, Dan Zeman
12. Sponsorships
To look for a sponsorship might be a difficult task,
but we will try hard, esp. with those international firms
that have their representation in Prague. We have a very
preliminary promise by INTEL.
13. Budget estimates
We have made some very preliminary calculations and
have come to the conclusion that if the conference fee is
the same as at ACL99, we will manage to be self-supported,
even if we are not successful with finding good sponsors. As
a matter of fact, the overall cost for the individual
participants might be even lower than for ACL99 because we
hope that lodging (esp. for students) will still be less
expensive than elsewhere.
We will present itemized budget estimates before the
deadline for the final proposal.
14. Experience of Local Arrangement team
The Institute (and its predecesors) has already organized a
number of bigger international events in Prague, such as
COLING in 1982 (about 400 participants), an international
summer school in computational linguistics in 1991 (more
than 100 participants), European Summer School in Logic,
Language and Information (ESSLLI) in 1996 (about 600
participants) and many smaller meetings and schools of good
international reputation. We have very good research and
personal relations with the other centers of computational
linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence in
the country, from whom we are sure to get full support.
The local arrangement team is willing to prepare some
user-friendly software tools for easy and smooth
registration, handling of payments on the spot etc. etc. We
assume that we can work in close cooperation with the ACL
secretary.
15. Attractiveness of the location.
In addition to the undisputable attraction of Prague for
foreign visitors, we would like to emphasize that ACL/EACL
has never been in Central Europe, so that if ACL/EACL 2001
is organized in Prague, the location would offer a unique
possibility for those members of the computational
linguistics community staying more to East to attend the
conference.
The situation now in the country is quite stable, the
currency seems to be stabilized as well, the use of credit
cards etc. is common, the exchange of money is easy.