Even the largest theoretical computer science conferences draw at most
a couple of hundred people. Many (but not all) other areas of computer
science also do not draw large numbers of participants. To have a
larger and more noticeable conference and possibly to get press
attention, the CS community decided to hold a joint conference covering
many different areas in computer science. In 1993, the first Federated
Computing Research Conference was held in San Diego.
The press didn't show but with some cross-collaboration the conference
was considered a mild success. After stops in Philadelphia and Atlanta,
FCRC returns to San Diego June 7-14. The 2003 FCRC includes
the main spring theory conference (STOC), Electronic Commerce (EC),
Computational Geometry, Principle and Practice of Parallel Programming
and many others. Registration deadline is May 7.
For the first time the
Complexity Conference will not be part of FCRC
as 2003 is a Europe year for us. I am planning to attend FCRC for STOC
and the EC meeting. If you attend FCRC stop by and say hi.