A P J Abdul Kalam Memorial International Travel Award

With the generous donation of Dr. P. K. Menon, Chief Scientist and Founder of Optimal Synthesis Inc., USA and his brother Prof. K. A. Narayankutty (a retired professor of Amrita Univ., Coimbatore), ACDOS is instituting the A P J Abdul Kalam Memorial International Travel Award for encouraging larger participation of ACDOS members working in India in the IFAC World Congress. The following will be the salient features of this award:

• The award will be available in both 2017 and 2020 versions of IFAC World Congress. There is a plan to extend it to future World Congresses as well, subject to fund availability in the future.
• The award will cover 100% registration fee for two professional members and three student members.
• Acceptance of a paper and physical travel to attend the conference to present the paper is a necessary pre-condition of this award.
• All active professional and student members of ACDOS working in India will be eligible to apply for this award.
• ACDOS will constitute a committee for selecting the awardees and their decision will be final. All applicants are supposed to apply for this with all necessary information, which will include (i) a copy of the accepted paper with paper ID, (ii) the review comments received, (iii) history of ACDOS membership and IFAC TC membership, if any and (iv) a brief 1-page resume. If any additional information is required, it'll be conveyed to the applicants in due course.
• The deadline for application will coincide with the final paper submission deadline of IFAC World Congress. For the 2017 version, the deadline is 31 March 2017.
• The student applicant must be the first author of the paper. Professional applicants need not be the first author.
• One paper can attract only one winner. In case co-authors apply for the award, the author whose name appears first in the paper in the author sequence will be considered for the award.
• In professional category, preference will not be given to people working in IITs/IISc, NITs, Govt. R&D labs and multi-national private companies. The primary reason being these institutes, labs and companies usually offer adequate travel grants. However, in case sufficient application is not received from others, applicants from these institutes/organizations will also be considered.
• In case of conflicts and dead-locks, preference will be given to long-standing members of ACDOS. Hence, this can be interpreted as a good benefit of becoming and maintaining the membership of ACDOS.
• The award money will be handed over to the winners after the conference gets over and after the award winner sends a copy of the conference participation certificate along with a formal declaration that he/she is not claiming the registration fee elsewhere. A copy of the Air-tickets and boarding passes will also serve as a proof of travel.
• A certificate will be issued to all award winners, which will be handed over to them in the ACODS conference closest to the corresponding IFAC World Congress. The award money, however, will be sent to the winners within one month after the conference gets over, subject to receiving the required documents from the winners.

The whole idea here is to encourage a large number of participation from our country. The executive members of ACDOS (as well as the sponsors Dr. Menon & his brother), will be quite happy to see a large number of Indian participation in IFAC World Congress. Let us make it happen!

More information about 2017 IFAC World congress can be found at: www.ifac2017.org.