ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world’s largest educational and scientific society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. Being a Secretary cum Treasurer of its India Chapter, ACM India Council calls for a lot of grit and determination to manage the role and responsibilities. Prof. Meenakshi D’Souza, Faculty at IIIT Bangalore was not only an elected Secretary cum Treasurer of the ACM India Council for the past four years. It is a four-year term; she got an extension for two more years in recognition of my voluntary services. Definitely, it requires a certain type of passion that makes you manage such a responsible role beyond academic work as a professor. That devoting oneself to such responsibilities beyond teaching is not easy. Yet, she is motivated to set aside a considerable amount of time. “ACM India work is voluntary work that we do in addition to our full-time job. All our meetings and other work are typically held over weekends. This voluntary work helps us in our research and teaching too, through the availability of funding and exposure to quality work that is happening elsewhere in the country. I typically work for about 12 hours a day and hope to continue to do so. Long working hours help me to manage my tasks“, she adds.
The members of the Council choose the executive committee that includes President and Vice-President and Secretary cum Treasurer and Prof. Meenakshi was chosen as the Secretary cum Treasurer. She is a part of the Executive Committee and as a Council member, reports to the President of ACM India. “We oversee and assist all the operations and initiatives of ACM India. As the Treasurer, I am also specifically responsible for working with the COO and the Chartered Accountants and assisting them in all the financial and audit-related work. I also specifically work with Diversity and Inclusivity initiatives, and on facilitating research initiatives of ACM India,” she adds. Sharing her excitement about the two-year extension of her role with Naviiina, she says, “I am excited about this new role and at the same time, aware of my responsibilities in this new role. It involves a lot of time and commitment from my side, I hope to be able to live up to the expectations of this new role.”
For more details: https://india.acm.org/
