DICTA 2022 Mentoring Program

The program is to facilitate sharing of experiences between members of the community, give supports to students and early career researchers, and foster future collaboration and mentorship.

Mentees: Students who are authors on accepted DICTA 2022 papers will receive our call for mentees via emails, and they can opt-in by filling in an online form. When appropriate, early career researchers could also be considered.

Mentors: Previous industry/research experience, equivalent to 2+ accepted papers in top conference proceedings. PC members at DICTA 2022 could be candidates. An online form will be prepared to call for mentors.

All program participants (Mentees and Mentors) will be contacted via email prior to the conference.

Before the conference:

• mentor and mentee contact details will be shared between them.
• mentees are expected to drive engagement with their mentors, e.g., sending their accepted conference paper to the mentor in advance of their presentation so as to allow the mentors to read the paper and provide some feedback.

During the Mentoring Workshop:

• invite speakers to talk about technical and research related matters, e.g., research topics and technical discussions.
• invite speakers to talk about scientific communication, e.g., paper writing, presentation and networking.
• networking session.

During the conference:

• the mentor is encouraged to attend the presentation of the paper (where possible) and to engage with the presenter for example through contributing constructive questions in the Q&A part.
• following the paper’s presentation, mentor and mentee are encouraged to meet up (e.g., in a coffee break) for feedback and potential follow-on discussion (where desired).

We strongly encourage mentors and mentees to have at least 2 virtual chats, e.g., one during the conference paper presentation and the other at the Mentoring Workshop. The goal of this mentoring program is to provide a platform to support conversations between mentors and mentees.

Mentoring Program Team:
Chang Xu, The University of Sydney
Wanli Ouyang, The University of Sydney