Information for Speakers
The Poughkeepsie Chapter of the ACM is always seeking speakers who can give informative talks to a friendly, informal, technical audience of 15 to 25 programmers and computer engineers. Most of our members have advanced degrees in technical fields related to computers, and many have themselves given talks to the group. We email meeting notices to the more than 350 members of our Meetup group. A talk to the Chapter is a good way of making contact with this community.
The Chapter does not pay an honorarium, but it does invite the speaker as a dinner guest at 6:00 PM on the evening of the talk at the Palace Diner, not far from the meeting room.
Topics
Our speakers have talked on diverse topics from state-of-the-art software and hardware technology to high-tech business startups to history of computers to STEM coursework. Recent talks can be found in our Formal Meetings page.
Flow of Meeting
Our meetings start at 7:30 PM, or a few minutes after. Talks are expected to take an hour to an hour and a quarter, with questions and discussion sometimes lasting until nearly 9:30 PM.
Announcement Information
The speaker should provide the webmaster with the following information for our meeting notice, preferably a month or more in advance of the talk:
- Title of talk, in 80 characters or fewer (Meetup.com restriction).
- Speaker's name, as it should appear on the meeting notice.
- One or two paragraphs describing the content of the talk.
- One or two paragraphs describing the speaker.
Examples of the above items can be found in our Formal Meetings page.
Meeting Room Facilities
Chapter meetings are usually held in Room 2023 of the Hancock Center at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. This room is equipped with state-of-the-art presentation facilities, including three projectors driven by a Windows computer with broadband internet access, USB port for flash drive input, and audio output. The projectors can also be connected to an external laptop. Chalkboards are also available.
Meeting Follow-Up
After most talks, speakers have provided the webmaster with a PDF of their foil presentations for posting on this website.