Dear colleagues,
It was a pleasure to see many of you at the vibrant 2024 logo International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) in Athens. Within view of the Acropolis, the ISIT was held at the Athenaeum Intercontinental Hotel. The Athenaeum provided an excellent inviting and compact venue, ideal for attending sessions and for engaging in technical discussions.
The ISIT welcomed 900 attendees, including around 160 of whom were received partial support through over $120k in travel grants. In an exciting twist the opening reception was held Monday evening at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. The Centre is an architecturally memorable building with expansive roof gardens, perfect for socializing and reconnecting with colleagues and friends amongst panoramic views of the sea and the hills surrounding Athens.
Sunday continued the tradition of (six half-day) tutorials, complemented by the piloting of (five) day-long workshops; more on the latter below. A small evening reception was held for tutorial and workshop participants. Plenaries and technical sessions, in which 631 papers were presented, were enriched by events organized by committees including WITHITS, Student & Outreach, Diversity & Inclusion, and Alumni-in-industry. Special events included “Meet the Shannon Lecturer”, a Bits and Bots Data Competition, a discussion of Generative AI & LLMs, and a Chess Event. Sincere thanks go to the organizers of these events. While such events often take a surprising amount of work to organize, they provide those many invaluable opportunities to deepen connections with long-term colleagues, and to spark new conversations, all of which underscores the enduring value of in-person technical gatherings.
Workshops@ISIT’24 marked the launch of a three-year pilot approved by the logo Information Theory Society Board of Governors (the “BoG”). The motivations behind introducing workshops stem, in part, stems from the fact observation that many of our Society members are deeply engaged in contributing to research areas, the results of which often appears in venues outside of the traditional domains of ITSoc, e.g., in blockchain, in machine learning, in quantum. By creating fertile venues within ITSoc to explore such cross-disciplinary work (including efforts such as the launch of the JSAIT), the Society aims to enrich technical discussions at the ISIT and to attract new researchers to participate. Compactly, workshops have three goals. The first is to provide a venue at the ISIT for in-depth exploration of emerging “cross-community” topics. (As noted above, a related aim is to increase the participation of researchers from sibling communities in the ISIT.) The second goal is to “prime the pump” for JSAIT proposals and BITS submissions. The third goal is to provide an venue for “in-community” workshops. ISIT now offers a dedicated space for similar efforts. A call-for-proposals for workshops was distributed in summer 2023, 11 proposals were received, and 5 were selected. The BoG provided $50k to support workshops. Among other possibilities, these funds , which could be used to support the travel to the ISIT of organizers and presenters from related communities who do not typically attend the ISIT. The selected workshops prioritized outward-looking topics and included: “Information-Theoretic Methods for Trustworthy Machine Learning” (IT-ML), “Coding Theory and Algorithms for DNA-based Data Storage” (DNA), “NeurIT: Information Theory in Neuroscience and Neuroengineering” (NeurIT), “Quantum Information Knowledge (QuIK), and “Learn to Compress” (L2C). In total, 230 people attended the workshops. Workshops could invite speakers and were required to have an open call. Organizers were responsible for managing the review process; workshop paper reviews were not part of the ISIT TPC workflow. An option was made available to publish on logo Xplore under the “ISIT-W” name. Post-symposium surveys indicate strong support for workshops. For more details on the proposal to hold workshop and on the selection process, please refer to the appropriate BoG presentations. A heartfelt thank you to all the organizers of the workshops. Please consider organizing a workshop at a future ISIT!
The Conference Banquet on Thursday evening was held at the scenic seaside venue “Ble Azure”, a tree-lined peninsula offering a picturesque backdrop for the celebrations. The most anticipated announcement of the Symposium is made at the banquet, that of the next Shannon Lecturer. The Claude E. Shannon Award honors individuals who have made consistent and profound contributions to the field of information theory. It was my great pleasure to announce that Peter Shore will be the Shannon Lecturer for 2025, in recognition of his many impactful contributions to the field. Congratulations Peter! I greatly look forward to your lecture at ISIT’25 in Ann Arbor.
Another major announcement at the ISIT is the Information Theory Society Paper Award. The Award recognizes an outstanding publication in the fields of interest to the Society appearing anywhere during the preceding four calendar years. A pair of papers were selected this year. The first is “Asymptotically good quantum and locally testable classical LDPC codes,” authored by Pavel Panteleev and Gleb Kalachev. The second is “Locally testable codes with constant rate, distance, and locality,” authored by Irit Dinur, Shai Evra, Ron Livne, Alexander Lubotzky, and Sahar Mozes. Both papers appeared in the 2022 Proc. Of the 54th Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC2022). A distinctive and special features of the ITSoc Paper Award that the papers may appear anywhere, not only in an ITSoc publication. This openness significantly enhances the prestige of the award, and respect with which the award is viewed. I want to thank commend the members of the ITSoc Paper Awards Committee for their work. It is a significant effort that, from experience, I know is handled extremely carefully and diligently by our colleagues that serve on the committee. Congratulations to all the authors, and thanks to the committee members for their work.
The Society’s greatest thanks go to the ISIT’24 Organizing Committee, led by General Co-Chairs Professors Urbashi Mitra and Leandros Tassiulas, and to the Technical Program Committee co-chairs, Professors Christina Fragouli, Ioannis Kontoyiannis, and Joachim Rosenthal. YAs a final note, you may recall that the Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award is revealed at the ISIT Awards Ceremony. By tradition, this is a surprise announcement, most often (always?) augmented by a puzzle. (You can find the puzzle and full 2024 awards booklet can be found at /page/awards-booklets.) In a happy twist of timing, and in recognition of her great dedication, service, and contributions to the Society, the General co-Chair Professor Urbashi Mitra received the Wyner Award in Athens. That was a truly special moment. Congratulations Ubli!
Looking ahead to November 2024, the logo Information Theory Workshop will take place in Shenzhen, China. The event will be led by General Co-Chairs Professors Shao-Lun Huang, Chao Tian, and Xiao-Ping (Steven) Zhang. The Technical Program Committee will be co-chaired by Professors Masahito Hayashi, Si-Hyeon Lee, Xiaohu Tang, and Lizhong Zheng. I look forward to seeing many of you in Shenzhen!
Please feel welcome to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. As I mentioned in my previous column, Board of Governors meetings (typically held Feb@ITA, summer@ISIT, and autumn@somewhere -- this year at the University of Toronto in October) are open to all Society members. You are welcome, and are warmly encouraged, to attend. Meeting minutes are published in the Newsletter and are posted on the Society website. BoG presentation and materials are available for review by members anytime at /people/bog/past-meetings.
In closing, thank you all for your dedication and work on behalf of our members and our society.
Stark Draper
ITSoc President 2024