The History of ICDL

• August 2011: For the first time ICDL is held jointly with the International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics in Frankfurt, Germany.
• April 2008: The expanded ICDL GB elected Minoru Asada as its new chair and Jochen Triesch as the co-chair. According to the new rule passed at ICDL 2006 at Bloomington: At the steady state, the ICDL GB consists of 12 members. Every two years, the term of 4 members will expire. Each past ICDL GB member is off board for a term (2 years) before being eligible for re-election. The election of the chair and the co-chair takes place right after new members join the board.
• January 2008: Four new members were elected to the ICDL Governing Board: Minoru Asada, Giorgio Metta, Brian Scassellati, and Olaf Sporns. They joined the existing board members: Hideki Kozima, James (Jay) McClelland, Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Terrence J. Sejnowski, Linda B. Smith, Juyang (John) Weng (chairman) with Jochen Triesch as the communication co-chair of the ICDL Governing Board. To generate new candidates for the election, Juyang Weng invited all past ICDL general and program chairs. Six candidates accepted the invitation and the terms of service. They were put on the ballot with their election statements. Jochen Triesch oversaw the election process by email votes.
• February 2005: With Jay McClelland as the ICDL GB Interim Chair and Jochen Triesch as the communications co-Chair, the election of two new members of ICDL GB and the Chair of ICDL GB has taken place. Hideki Kozima and Linda Smith were elected to the board by the membership. Jay McClelland, Sandy Pentland, Terry Sejnowski, and John Weng are continuing from the ICDL Interim GB for continuity and will rotate off in 1-2 years. John Weng was elected to serve as the first ICDL GB Chair, replacing Jay McClelland, who served as Interim Chair while the election of new members was conducted. Jochen Triesch will continue to serve as communications co-Chair of the GB, serving a three-year term wich began in the fall of 2004.
• October 2004: The AMDTC and ICDL business meeting was held at the 3rd ICDL (2004) at La Jolla, CA. The meeting passed a resolution: The current ICDL Advisory Board is changed to ICDL Governing Board. Every year, two of its legacy members will be rotated out and two new members will be elected.
• June 2002: At the end of the 2nd ICDL (2002), the business meeting decided to establish an ICDL Advisory Board, which was an informal, non-elected board, consisting of members:
  • Jeff Elman, Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego
  • James L. (Jay) McClelland, Walter Van Dyke Bingham Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience, MIT
  • Esther Thelen (1941-2004), Professor of Psychology, Indiana University
  • Alex Pentland, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
  • Juyang Weng, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University.
  There was no chair; Juyang Weng served as the de facto coordinator.
• April 2000: The ICDL series started from WDL (2000). During WDL, there was a consensus to hold ICDL every two years with WDL considered the first ICDL. The remaining funds from DARPA and NSF were approved to be used to establish http://www.mentaldev.org/, a repository for the multidisciplinary subject of mental development. For a picture from WDL click here. It shows a snapshot of the participants at the Workshop on Development and Learning held at the Kellogg Center of Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, before they started the last session (Session 6: How to Proceed as a Community?) on April 7, 2000.