Road2CDC Initiative

The 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2024 (IEEE CDC 2024) will be held in Milano, Italy, on December 16-19 2024. The IEEE CSS Italy Chapter intends to foster the active involvement of the Systems & Control Italian community in IEEE CDC 2024.

With this aim, IEEE CSS Italy Chapter would like to launch a series of initiatives, under a common umbrella named Road2CDC24, to draw the interest of Students, Young Professionals, and Researchers.

The initiative will comprise the period starting September 1, 2023 up to December 19, 2024.

To draw the interest of Master and PhD students, we propose an initiative aimed at involving young researchers or professionals who graduated or will graduate in an Italian Master course (Laurea Magistrale) in 2023 or 2024, with a Master Thesis on Systems & Control topics.
The idea is to institute a Road2CDC prize for (up to) 10 Best Master Theses in Control discussed in the time leading to IEEE CDC 2024.

The deadline for application is November 1st 2024.

To apply a student needs to:

• discuss a Thesis on Systems & Control between January 1st 2023 and October 31st 2024;

• submit a nomination package consisting of:

  • A brief self-nomination letter describing the subject of his/her Master Thesis;

  • A pdf copy of the thesis;

  • A three-minutes video “My thesis in a nutshell”, describing the main results of his/her Master Thesis work.

• be an IEEE student member and IEEE CSS member, and belong to the R8 – Italy Section of IEEE (i.e. the student shall be an Italian resident).

The Best Master Theses will be selected by a committee formed by members of the Chapter and of the IEEE CDC 2024 OpCom. The videos will constitute part of the evaluation procedure.

The committee will select (up to) 10 finalists, who will be awarded with:

• A free Student Registration to IEEE CDC 2024 (NB: in case of a co-authored thesis, the registration will be awarded to one author per thesis, to be agreed internally among the authors).

• The possibility to present their work in a Special Session (not part of the technical program, and not part of the proceedings) held at IEEE CDC 2024, during the Workshops day.

• An award certificate.

Among the finalists, the committee will select one winner, who will receive also a plaque. Moreover, the winning videos and a selection of the submitted ones will be published on a special Road2CDC section of the YouTube Channel of IEEE CSS Italy Chapter.

The IEEE CSS Italy Chapter is aiming at supporting seminars held at an Italian institution by researchers and experts in the field of Systems & Control in the time-window leading to IEEE CDC 2024 (September 2023 – November 2024), by introducing the Road2CDC Seminar Series.

Seminars included in the Road2CDC Seminar Series will be supported as follows:

• Advertisement of the Seminar through e-notice / IEEE events;

• Advertisement of the Seminar on the Chapter media platforms (Chapter webpage, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter channels);

• Creation of a streaming link, and successive publication of the recorded video on a special Road2CDC section of the YouTube Channel of IEEE CSS Italy;

• Event flyers and media will be entitled to include the IEEE CSS Italy and Road2CDC logos.

The Road2CDC Seminars will need to fulfill some criteria to be eligible for sponsorship:

1. They shall cover topics of interest for the IEEE CSS Italy Chapter;

2. They shall be open to students with no fee;

3. They shall be held in English;

4. They shall be held and organized at an Italian institution.

One or two introductory slides introducing IEEE CSS Italy and IEEE CDC 2024 will be provided to the organizers of Road2CDC Seminars, together with an ad-hoc flyer template.

In case more than one seminar is planned for the same day, or in consecutive days, by the same Institution, the event may be named Road2CDC Workshop.

The Master students that would like to participate to the Road2CDC Master Theses Initiative shall send an email to road2CDC2024@gmail.com introducing themselves and attaching to the email:

1. self-nomination letter;

2. copy of the thesis;

3. 3-minutes video.

In case the attached files are too large, the students can attach to the email a sharable link to a .zip folder, including all the required information.

The IEEE CSS Italy Chapter members interested in organizing an event within the Road2CDC Seminar Series Initiative, shall contact the Road2CDC board via email at road2CDC2024@gmail.com providing for each contribution:

1. title and brief abstract;

2. short bio of the speaker(s);

3. hosting Institution;

4. location and date.

Within the Road2CDC Seminar Series Initiative, it is possible to require also some gadgets for students (e.g. pins and t-shirts).

The request shall be submitted to the Road2CDC board at least one week before the event.