[evaal contest] present, past and future of EvAAL

[Francesco Potortì]

Dear EvAAL community,

the workshop and award ceremony in Norrköping were successful, and all
the involved people have been happy about it, thanks a lot to all that
helped organise it and to the competitors which have made EvAAL 2013 a
success!

The main page of <http://evaal.aaloa.org> is updated and contains the
scores for the competitors.  In the next days we will upload the photos
and the remaining details.

In the rest of this very long email I make a summary of the work done
during these years and start drawing a prospective for the future.  The
main change that is going to happen is that we are going to lose the
support of universAAL, the FP7 integration project that has financed the
birth and most of the operation of EvAAL until now.


THE PAST

Many organisations provided the effort for realising EvAAL in the three
years it has existed.


1. Specific roles

UPM provided support for the web site, financed by universAAL in
2011-2013.

ITRI, financed by universAAL, provided contacts with our sponsors in
2013, thanks to whom we could provide the prizes during the awarding.

Fraunhofer-IGD provided contacts with the AAL Forum in 2011-2013,
financed by universAAL.

Some volunteers provided additional support, the most significant being
the lead of the activity recognition track in 2012 and 2013, by Juan
Antonio Álvarez García (Seville university).

2. The living labs

All the practical organising effort was provided by the three living
labs: Ciami (TSB) in Valencia, Smart House (UPM) in Madrid, Domotic Home
(S.Anna) in Pisa.  Ciami worked for free, providing the software, the
location and the local organisation in 2011, 2012 and 2013.  Smart House
worked mostly for free, with a partial financing form the universAAL
project, to provide the same things as Ciami in 2012 and 2013.  Both
were significant efforts.  Domotic Home worked for free, organising the
robotics demo in 2013.

3. Main lead

The remaining organisation effort was beared by CNR with universAAL
financing in 2011-2013: Francesco Furfari, Stefano Chessa, Francesco
Potortì, Paolo Barsocchi were the persons involved.  Their effort
included identifying the competitions to do and the relevant program
committees, preparing and disseminating the calls, managing the
localization track committee, providing general guidance and
organisation, following up with the competitions in the living labs,
organising the final workshop and award ceremony, preparing the material
to go on the web site and mailing lists.  This probably sums up to two
thirds of the total effort needed and, I shall stress again, was
entirely supported by universAAL.


THE FUTURE

What we face now is the perspective of walking on our legs, without any
more support from universAAL, which will stop by the end of 2013.  There
are several actions that can be started for the sustainability of EvAAL
after the end of universAAL, I will list some of them.  All of them need
further discussion and refinement, which I solicit on this list and in
private.

1. Reduce

We can make the competition less expensive, both for organising and for
participating to it, by doing everything in one week, in one location.
One possibility would be to make one competition, workshop and award
ceremony in the Smart House (UPM) living lab, which volunteers for this.
Details about this possibility are given in a mail which was posted on
this mailing list some weeks ago.

2. Volunteers

Even with the above proposed reduction, we need *significant* support
from volunteers.  Specifically, CNR volunteers to keep the organising
lead, but with an effort not greater than perhaps one fifth of what has
been done in these three years.  This means that, without a significant
support from additional volunteers, EvAAL will not have a 2014 edition.

3. Financing

Especially if we organise the competition all in one week, we can ask a
subscription fee from the competitors.

European COST actions can be an appropriate source of financing for
universAAL.  We submitted a proposal some months ago, but it was
rejected.  I believe that the motivations in the rebuttal allow us to
write one more proposal with the hope of succeding.  Someone should
volunteer about taking care of this.  Other European financing avenues
could be available, and should be explored.

Other sources of financing are research projects that care about AAL,
activity recognition and the like.  Possible candidates are ReAAL,
Evarilos, Giraff+, certainly others.  People involved in these or other
projects may explore the possibility of dedicating part of the project's
effort to contribute to EvAAL.

Private companies support could be seeked, especially as far as living
costs are concerned, like travel expenses, competition subscription fees
and, most importantly, prizes.

--
Francesco Potortì (ricercatore)        Voice:  +39.050.621.3058
ISTI - Area della ricerca CNR          Mobile: +39.348.8283.107
via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 Pisa         Skype:  wnlabisti
(entrance 20, 1st floor, room C71)     Web:    http://fly.isti.cnr.it