Computer Vision and Machine Learning

The school aims to provide a stimulating opportunity for young researchers and Ph.D. students. The participants will benefit from direct interaction and discussions with world leaders in Computer Vision. Participants will also have the possibility to present the results of their research, and to interact with their scientific peers, in a friendly and constructive environment.

LIST OF SPEAKERS
• Serge J. Belongie, University of California, San Diego, USA
• Horst Bischof, Graz University of Technology, Austria
• Vance Bjorn, DigitalPersona, USA
• Daniel Cremers, Technische Universität München, Germany
• Trevor Darrell, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Irfan Essa, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
• Andrea Fusiello, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy
• Svetlana Lazebnik, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Yann LeCun, New York University, USA
• Vincent Lepetit, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Pietro Perona, California Institute of Technology, USA
• Bernt Schiele, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Germany
• Jamie Shotton, Microsoft Research Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Stefano Soatto, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• Antonio Torralba, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• Andrea Vedaldi, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

SCHOOL DIRECTORS
• Roberto Cipolla, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Sebastiano Battiato, University of Catania, Italy
• Giovanni Maria Farinella, University of Catania, Italy

SCHOOL APPLICATION
The school will be open to about 100 qualified, motivated and pre-selected candidates.

POSTER SUBMISSION
Accepted students may submit a poster to present their research activity. The poster should be submitted before 15 May 2013. Suitable space will be reserved to students for showing their posters. The electronic version of the posters will also be available from the ICVSS web site.

SCHOLARSHIP
A scholarship of 500€ (supported by GIRPR) will be awarded to the best PhD student attending the school. The decision will be made by the school committee at the time of the school, taking into account candidates'cv, poster and oral presentation. All PhD students attending the school will be considered for the grant.

BEST PRESENTATION PRIZE
A selected subset from the submitted posters will be selected by the school committee for short oral presentation. A best presentation prize of 500€ (supported by Toshiba Research Europe) will be given to the best presentation selected by the school committee.

READING GROUP (WITH PRIZE!)
During a typical PhD and subsequent research year, students will read probably more than 100 papers. Reading research papers is a skill that can be acquired and that is very different from reading a novel. This session is to introduce students to that skill.

Good ideas have deep roots. Understanding such roots is key to being able to generate new ideas moving forward. The main goal of the Reading Group is to practice ways in which exploration of these roots can be performed. The homework prior to the commencement of the school consists in studying (not just reading) one or more of the references provided by the school commitee, and tracing the ideas as far back as you can.

Detailed instructions will be sent to students after acceptance notification.

PRACTICAL SESSION
This year's practical session will be a on visual recognition. The purpose of the practical session is to give the attendees the opportunity to get in hand experience whilst exploiting state of the art computer vision techniques.

More Information to follow.

ESSAY COMPETITION - The Social Impact of Computer Vision
This essay competition reflects the importance of considering the “real world” social impact of technology alongside the fundamental goals of basic R&D.

Computer Vision is an area of scientific and technological development that will continue to have a profound impact on society. It will redefine the way in which information technology intersects and interfaces with medicine, it will play a key role in the care of an ageing population and it is already a fundamental aspect of modern security technology.

Participants in the competition may write a piece of original work on the topic reported below. There are no style guidelines, or “correct answers”. You may reference any sources you wish (from any field of thought / endeavor). There is a strict word limit of 1,500 words, excluding citations and footnotes. Through an entirely subjective, qualitative and irreproducible selection process, the successful essayist will have his €500 attendance fees at the ICVSS 2013 reimbursed.

Submissions should be sent in PDF or Word format to icvss@dmi.unict.it. Your name, email address and university/ organization should be written at the top of your essay. Deadline for submission is 15 June 2013. The winner of the competition will be announced on 19 July 2013. The essays will be shared with fellow summer school attendees.

Essay Topic:
The Visually Impaired and the Ageing Society: the beneficial use of computer vision in these contexts. Discuss.

SCHOOL DEADLINES
Student Application: 31 March 2013
Notification Acceptance: 15 April 2013
Early Registration: 30 April 2013
Late Registration (with extra payment of 150 €): After 30 April 2013
Accommodation Reservation at the IGV Resort: 10 May 2013
Poster Submission: 15 May 2013
Local Arrangements Information: 15 June 2013
Essay Competition: 15 June 2013
Submission for Reading Group Competition: 15 July 2013 (first day of the school)
Notification of Decision for Oral Presentation: 19 July 2013 (same day of the presentation)

LOCATION OF ICVSS 2013
ICVSS 2013 will be hosted by Le Castella Resort located in Calabria from 14-20 July 2013. Calabria is a region in Southern Italy. It's considered the Caribbean of Europe thanks to its pristine beaches, stunning landscape, and rustic charms. Hillside towns, ancient Greek temples and Byzantine churches dot the countryside of Italy's best kept secret. The sea, weather, food, wine and naturalistic places are excellent.

ACCOMMODATION RESERVATION AT IGV RESORT
ICVSS participants will be hosted by Le Castella Resort (i.e., school location) located in Calabria at very special rates. ICVSS participants must make reservations for accommodation no later than 10 May 2013, using the accommodation reservation form (Accommodation Reservation Module) to be sent by email directly to the resort reception (Mrs. Antonella Belloni icvss2013@igrandiviaggi.it). After 10 May 2013 there is no guarantee for reservations.

The accommodation prices for ICVSS participants are the following:

SCHOOL BUS SERVICE
The following bus service will be provided by the school (without charge):