The founding year

Our first annual report documents the establishment of the Montreal chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. With such a high concentration of computer graphics activity in this city, it is actually surprising that such a chapter has not already formed before this time. Apparently, the only thing missing was a spark, for the response from the community has been tremendous.

Sitting on the board of ACM-Quebec, the Quebec chapter of SIGGRAPH's parent organization, the chapter's founder got early support for the project in the spring of 2001, and valuable mentoring throughout the founding year. By the end of the summer, a dedicated core group had formed, a bilingual web site and mailing lists were in place, and presenters for the first few monthly events had been confirmed.

Word of mouth quickly reached the SAT (Societe pour les Arts Technologiques), which offered to host our monthly events in their superb locale. The SAT was created in 1996 by a small group of artists and researchers interested in placing new digital production tools at the service of artistic expression. They continue to play an active role in our chapter, and represent an important link to the Montreal artistic community.

Our first formal season (September 2001 - April 2002) consisted of 7 monthly events. Most evenings had two formal presentations, with content divided fairly evenly among experts from the academic, commercial and artistic milieus. With minimal publicity, attendance has been nevertheless consistently strong from the very start, ranging from 70 to 300 people for each event. Towards the end of the season, local companies began to catch on and started sponsoring some our activities.

The chapter-in-formation was managed by the SIGGRAPH-Montreal Founding Committee, which included members of the Montreal computer graphics industry as well as Montreal-based students, university professors and local multimedia artists. The Founding Committee drafted a charter in December 2001, and formally submitted a petition for official recognition to ACM SIGGRAPH headquarters a few months later. In April 2002, we were officially chartered as the Montreal chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. We opened membership and held our first annual general assembly in which the chapter's Board and Committee members were elected to carry on the chapter's activities for the upcoming 2002/2003 season.

The number and variety of people and organizations in the Montreal area involved in computer graphics and interactive techniques is tremendous. We are a unique and exciting community, in terms of both technology and culture. The establishment of a Montreal chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH has created an opportunity for this community to discover itself and to establish its own special identity within the international community.