Category Archives: ACM DSP

Jan 2020: Helsinki DSP Tour

In January 2020 I was invited to the University of Helsinki and Aalto University in Finland to deliver an ACM Distinguished Speaker Tour delivering a lecture on Immersive Analytics and Global HCI. The second talk was part of the Helsinki Distinguished Lecture Series.

“The Helsinki Distinguished Lecture Series on Future Information Technology is organized by HIIT, a joint research institute between University of Helsinki and Aalto University. The series was launched in 2012. The focus of the lecture series is on the research challenges and solutions faced by current and future information technology, as seen by internationally leading experts in the field. The lectures are intended to be approachable for people with scientific education in fields other than information technology, whilst at the same time providing information technology experts new viewpoints to their own discipline.”

2019: ACM SIGCHI China Chapter’s 15th Anniversary

As part of the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program I delivered a distinguished lecture as part of the ACM SIGCHI China Chapter’s 15th Anniversary event this November in Beijing.

As the SIGCHI site notes

“SIGCHI Local Chapters help the ACM SIGCHI community to promote and advance human-computer interaction locally and around the globe. For the developing parts of the world, Local Chapters often serve as the first front to promote HCI education, research and practice in the region. SIGCHI Local Chapters are unique in building bridges between academics, practitioners and students in the field of HCI.


There are 50 SIGCHI Local Chapters on 6 continents, in over 30 countries, impacting over 4,000 chapter members. While each chapter has its own unique approach, the professional and student chapters organize meetings, offer presentations from invited speakers, networking opportunities, discussion forums, job boards, and other special events year-round. Many chapters host their own local conferences and hold contests for HCI students.“

Keynote at Mensch und Computer (MuC) 2019

Last week I was one of the three keynote speakers at the Mensch und Computer (MuC) conference in Germany. I joined Margaret Urban, Senior Interaction Designer, Google, Mountain View, CA and Mark Billinghurst from the University of Auckland and South Australia. I spoke about Discreet computing while Margaret spoke about conversational interfaces and Mark looked forward to the next 20 years of augmented reality. I was honoured to be in such esteemed company and to present to nearly 1,000 delegates.

This is the “annual conference organised by the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.) and the German Usability Professionals Association (German UPA)” with nearly 1,000 participants from industry and academia is a great way to learn all about what’s going on with HCI research and practice at the heart of Europe. It’s also one of the largest German-speaking IT conferences and the largest HCI conference in Europe when CHI isn’t in Europe.

Discreet Computing keynote Hamburg 2019

Today I was a keynote speaker at the Mensch-und-Computer conference 2019. This blog post contains to links to all the papers I mentioned which are in the ACM digital library. You can click on these links to get all these papers for no charge via the ACM Author-Izer service. This is a “service that enables ACM authors to generate and post links on both their homepage and institutional repository for visitors to download the definitive version of their articles from the ACM Digital Library at no charge.”

  • Slide 76: Opisthenar: Hand Poses and Gestures Recognition by Observing Back of Hand Using Embedded Wrist Camera (to appear UIST 2019) 

Philippines DSP Tour

In August of 2019 I undertook a distinguished speaker lecture tour to the Philippines hosted by the ACM SIGCHI Chapter in Manila. During this time I undertook a series of research visits to the University of the Philippines and De La Salle University (DLSU). [ACM DSP]

Aaron at Weta in Wellington

2019 ACM Distinguished Speaker: Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand

As an ACM Distinguished Speaker, I was recently invited to deliver a series of lectures in New Zealand on “Novel Interactions in Augmented Reality” and “Discreet Computing” at the “Magic Leap Workshop” (a.k.a. Augmented Reality Summer School February 11th – 15th, 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand). During this time I made a further trip to Wellington to deliver a lecture in the University of Wellington and to visit various people in Weta.