About
The Asia SIGCHI Committee is an arm of the SIGCHI Executive Committee (EC) dedicated to activating HCI research and practices in Asia and building bridges among the HCI researchers and practitioners in the region. Our activities include identifying common issues and interests across Asian countries, creating places for shared learning and providing support wherever possible, coordinating with Chapters to gain synergy with chapter activities, helping countries with no Chapters and getting key players involved, and engaging with activities to showcase Asian HCI research in cooperation with other regional committees around the world.
Please check back in late 2022 for website updates, including a listing of upcoming events/meetings, past meeting minutes, blog posts, updated resource lists, and channels for you to contribute. Should you have any questions, please contact us. We want to hear from you!
Projects
In 2022–23, we are focusing on the following projects:
Project 1: Strengthening HCI education in Asia
HCI education has been a long-term global mission of SIGCHI. Asian countries have their unique economic, societal, cultural, industrial, and educational contexts distinct from western societies. The Asia SIGCHI Committee seeks to address what HCI education in such an Asian context should look like. In order to develop an HCI curriculum that is practical, useful, and adaptable to different Asian countries, we believe that educators, scholars, students, practitioners, and all stakeholders who believe they would benefit from such a curriculum need to come together to discuss ways forward in HCI curriculum development. The Asia SIGCHI Committee, therefore, is seeking and gathering inputs from all kinds of stakeholders via interviews, focus groups, panel discussions, and surveys on this topic. After we gather these data, we hope to be able to report the results in some written form to SIGCHI EC and the broader SIGCHI community in the next year.
If you have input for this project, reach out to Yung-Ju (Stanley) Chang.
Project 2: Understanding barriers/gaps and needs for local chapters to collaborate at a regional level
The Asia SIGCHI Committee believes that a way to accelerate the awareness of HCI and the growth of the local communities is to join the forces of the communities in each region together. Such collaboration will allow pooling resources to organize events with more impact and visibility, sharing resources and know-how, and allow chapters to learn from each others’ experiences. However, from our experience working with each of our local chapters, collaborations between chapters from different countries are difficult. Some barriers are apparent, e.g., language, geographical distance, and visa requirements. However, there could be other barriers that are less understood, e.g., intercultural communication, stereotypes on how each people from one country see and be seen by others, or challenges from the institutional or political structure. Asia SIGCHI Committee plans to conduct focus groups, in-depth interviews, and surveys. We hope to be able to report the results in some written form to SIGCHI EC and the broader SIGCHI community in the next year.
If you have input for this project, reach out to Chat Wacharamanotham.
Project 3: Enhancing HCI awareness in Asia
HCI is important in education and research in Asian countries. Yet the overall awareness of HCI research and its implications is relatively low compared to North America and Western Europe. We believe holding collaborative events between chapters and different Asian countries may help address this problem. The events can spread awareness about HCI, create new partnerships, and enhance collaboration at a Chapter or country level. In addition, increased collaboration and support network of Asian researchers working in the field of HCI will allow for mutual growth and more efficient use of resources. We believe that a collective push from Asia SIGCHI researchers will help advance the awareness about HCI education and research in Asia. We hope to be able to raise awareness of HCI by actively supporting HCI events in Asia and increasing participation from Asian countries.
If you have input for this project, reach out to Pushpendra Singh.
Committee members
Naomi Yamashita
NTT, Japan
Briane Paul Samson
De La Salle University, Philippines
Chat Wacharamanotham
Swansea University, UK
Pushpendra Singh
IIIT Delhi, India
Shiwei Cheng
Zhejiang University of Technology, China
Suleman Shahid
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
Yung-Ju (Stanley) Chang
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan