Diversity and Inclusion Chairs

Diversity and Inclusion Chairs

Applicants should fill out the application form at Microsoft Office Form Link

Information

NAACL 2022 is providing D&I funds for registration, caregiving, bandwidth, travel, VPN subsidies and volunteer opportunities. We strongly encourage researchers from developing countries and marginalized communities to apply for subsidies to maximize their chances of getting their registration fees waived. We are also seeking student and non-student volunteers for the 2022 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL 2022).

In exchange for one full day equivalent of work, student volunteers receive free registration to the main conference (including workshops and tutorials) and ACL membership for one year. Non-student volunteers receive free registration to the main conference (including workshops and tutorials). We encourage undergraduate students as volunteers, as well as PhD and MSc students.

The last date is not decided yet and applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as possible so we can allocate you promptly before the funding runs out. Applications will close by May 24 at this link

Registration subsidies

This is for getting a waiver for ACL registration. You can also request ACL membership if applicable. You will be asked to justify your application. For instance, you can say:

1) “I have an accepted paper at the main conference. I would like to apply for a registration fee waiver because my fees are not funded by my organization/institution.”

2) “I have an accepted paper at a NAACL Workshop, I live in a developing country and I/my institution cannot afford the registration fees. ”

3) “I have a paper accepted at the main conference/workshop/affinity group workshop and I am an active member of Latinx/Masakhane/North African in NLP/QueerinAI/WiNLP.”

Note that if you are applying for a registration fee waiver, you SHOULD NOT register for the conference until you hear from us about your D&I subsidy application. That way, you would not have to ask for a reimbursement, since you would not be charged in the first place.

Travel and accommodation subsidies

We are also providing travel and accommodation subsidies. Priority will be given to authors, first-time attendees and folks from underrepresented communities.

If you would like to attend the in-person meeting please keep in mind that if your waiver application is accepted, only for the accommodations, we offer to pay before the conference. However, travel expenses are reimbursable after the conference dates. We will reimburse the plane ticket after the conference.

The number of accepted applicants and the amount offered could vary depending on the number of applicants and the availability of funding. We encourage you to apply as early as possible so you have the best chance to get the subsidy before the D&I funds run out.

Caregiving and accessibility subsidies

We can reimburse caregiving purchases that you need for the conferences. You need to provide receipts for your purchases. These can be babysitting, transportation costs, or other support required for yourself or your dependents, which would ease your participation. If you need any personal or technical assistance to access and navigate the conference due to a disability, we can reimburse you for the cost of it. This holds for example if you need assistance in using gather.town due to visual impairment. We acknowledge that accessibility needs are highly individual to each participant, so please feel free to reach out to us with any issues you might face in this regard. When justifying your caregiving and accessibility subsidy application, you can say for example: “As a caregiver, I would like to apply for a caregiving subsidy of n USD to take care of my child when I will be presenting my work at the conference.”

Bandwidth and VPN subsidies

We can reimburse bandwidth or VPN purchases that you need for the conferences. You need to provide receipts for your purchases. Bandwidth subsidies would be for high-speed internet access costs for the duration of the conference only. VPN generally does not cost more than 10 USD per month and could be applied towards participation if you need anonymity to participate completely. A justification example can be:

1) “I am from a remote village where I depend on my cellular internet. I would need n USD to increase my quote as my current plan is not suitable for video conferencing (add a link to the tariff of your internet subscriber if possible).”

2) “As a queer person, I worry about my safety and privacy and I would like to apply for a VPN subsidy of n USD to avoid surveillance (link to the service provider if possible).”

Volunteer awards

As NAACL 2022 will be hybrid, volunteer tasks will be different from previous years. We are seeking volunteers to help us with the following tasks. Please note in your application if you have a preference as to which role you are interested in.

  • Program Support to help check author presentations are uploaded and paper information is correct (before the conference)
  • Program Support to help set up gather.town spaces for social/networking events (before the conference)
  • Technical Support with the virtual conference infrastructure; troubleshoot technical issues during the conference
  • Helpdesk monitor on-call channels before or during the conference, including incident management
  • Program Support to facilitate video presentations and virtual rooms during the conference, including live Q&A sessions and DEI events (birds-of-a-feather, mentoring)
  • Sponsor Liaison point of contact to support a sponsor’s conference presence
  • Workshop point of contact to coordinate a workshop’s virtual infrastructure needs
  • Assisting at the registration desk and the attendees
  • Organizing delegate packs and the conference venue
  • Providing technical assistance for conference events including tutorials, the main conference, and workshops.

Volunteers are needed during the tutorials, main conference and workshops, as well as up to three weeks prior to the conference and a short time thereafter. Please consider applying if you are available at any time in this window. As we will receive most of the presentations prior to the conference, a large portion of the tasks will be done in advance, maximizing volunteer access to the conference events.

NAACL is eager to increase its diversity and is committed to being inclusive of all underrepresented groups in NLP. For this reason, it greatly encourages members of these groups to apply. The information that you provide will be processed by the NAACL 2022 organisation team for the sole purpose of volunteer selection and for gathering information about Diversity and Inclusion in our community.

Selection Criteria

Applicants will be evaluated based on the material they submit in their application packages. Preference will be given to underrepresented applicants who are presenting a paper at the main conference, the Student Research Workshop, or any of the workshops associated with NAACL, and who do not have other means of support.

Application deadline

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Please apply as soon as possible so we can allocate you promptly before the funding runs out.

No applications will be considered after May 24.

Notification of acceptance

1 week before the early registration deadline. (Please visit https://2022.naacl.org/ for more details.)

We aim to send all notifications by the deadline above. However, we will start processing the applications as they come and you may be contacted earlier.

Contact details

NAACL Diversity and Inclusion team: naacl-2022-dei-chairs@googlegroups.com

Volunteer chair: danielk@allenai.org