The Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-06) and the Eighteenth Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-06) will be held in Boston, Massachusetts at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center, July 16-20, 2006. AAAI-06 will mark the launch of activities celebrating AI's fiftieth anniversary. Please join us for this landmark event! AAAI is pleased to announce the launch of the First Annual Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference. The conference will be held June 1-3, 2005 at the Marriott Hotel in Marina del Rey, California.

We are delighted to announce the continuation of the cooperative effort with AI Journal, giving unlimited access to the online version of the Artificial Intelligence Journal to all regular AAAI members. AAAI regular members can view and browse tables of contents, view articles published in recent issues of AI Journal, and utilize the current features available through Elsevier's electronic journal service. They may also view, print and/or download excerpts of reasonable quantity, provided that the use of such excerpts is personal and does not amount to or result in commercial distribution. Complete details were mailed to all regular members in good standing in January. If you have forgotten your membership number or need instructions, please write to us at membership04@aaai.org.

Many of you have been receiving the AI Alert newsletter, which highlights selected features from the "AI in the News" section of the AAAI Pathfinder/AI Topics web pages. If you are a member of AAAI and would like to begin receiving this newsletter, along with other AAAI announcements, please subscribe to our AAAI membership list server by sending email to majordomo@aaai.org Be sure to visit the AI Topics web site at www.aaai.org/AITopics/aitopics.html The deadline for nominations is November 1, 2003. The 2004 Spring Symposium Series will be held March 22-24, 2004 at Stanford University.

The Twelfth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-2000) will run concurrently with the main technical conference this year on Tuesday, August 1, and Wednesday, August 2. IAAI-2000 will honor six case studies of fully deployed applications with measurable benefits whose value depends on the use of AI technology. This year's papers address applications in a wide variety of domains, including large-scale scheduling, biotechnology, medical data mining, civil engineering, financial modeling, email management, manufacturing, and interactive agents. AI techniques discussed include knowledge-based systems, vision, constraint programming, machine learning, software synthesis, planning and execution, natural language processing, diagnostic reasoning, reasoning with uncertainty, neural networks, and cognitive simulation. The innovative applications conference is intended not only for those involved in applications but also for researchers interested in gaining a better understanding of the applications side of the AI equation. The AAAI-2000 exhibition will offer a wide variety of programs, including the Ninth Annual Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition, the Intelligent Systems Demonstrations, the final round of the National Botball Tournament, and the finals of the AAAI-2000 Robot Building Laboratory contest.

AAAI is pleased to announce the continued expansion of its awards program in 2000. The first AAAI Effective Expository Writing Award will be presented at the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, to be held July 31-August 3 in Austin, Texas. This award joins the two special awards established last year, the AAAI Classic Paper Award and the AAAI Distinguished Service Award. The AAAI Effective Expository Writing Award honors the author(s) of a high-quality, effective piece of writing, accessible to the general public or to a broad AI audience (not just a subarea), written within the last two years. The contribution should be based on sound science, interesting ideas, or systematic review, with nontrivial content, but the award is primarily for the exposition--the author need not be the one who has done the research.

President Pat Hayes opened the meeting by welcoming the four newly elected members of the Executive Council who are Johan de Kleer, Benjamin Kuipers, Paul Rosenbloom, and Beverly Woolf. He also thanked the four retiring councilors-Ken Forbus, Howie Shrobe, Bill Swartout, and Marty Tenenbaum-for their three years of service on the Council and their continuing service to AAAI. Standing Cqmmittee Reports Reports were presented by the finance, workshop grants, fellows, conference, publications, symposium, and scholarship committees. Finance Committee: Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Buchanan presented the financial report. Due to the decline in revenue for the association and poor interest rates, the financial outlook is not as positive as in past years.

The following are news releases from AAAI PO, held July 30 -August 3, in Boston. In the opening plenary session at the American Association for Artificial Intelligence Conference in Boston this week, Dr. Daniel G. Bobrow, of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and President of AAAI, challenged the audience to move towards a far more "interactive view - between agents, people and technologies. Our real challenge," he said, "is not just to build intelligent systems, but to help corporations and government build intelligent organizations. We need to help people expand their viewpoints and improve their capabilities by distributing knowledge. AI should play a key role in systems that enhance the human values of the world we live in."

This study provides an analysis of the African Artificial Intelligence (AI) market. The stakeholder scope includes international technology corporations and African start-ups; technology scope includes computer vision, deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing, neural networks, predictive analytics, and robotics; and the end-user scope includes a number of industries such as banking and financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, manufacturing, mining, hospitality and media, amongst others. This study details the key components of an AI ecosystem and explains how AI converges with technologies such as analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). It provides a snapshot of global AI trends in terms of key investments, strategy and competition, and also lists the acquisition-led strategies adopted by leading technology corporations including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook, Salesforce and IBM. This study provides an analysis of the African AI market, including the competitive landscape and the extent of AI market development across key African countries, along with the impact potential and extent of market penetration of various AI technologies and the degree of AI adoption across key industry verticals.

Viola.AI is The World's First A.I-driven Marketplace for Dating and Relationships. Harnessing on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and trustless Smart Contracts, Viola.AI is set to revolutionize the dating and relationship space in the world. She will be the first dating and relationship A.I. that evolves with the users - creating a global and borderless full loop solution from dating, courtship, relationship to marriage. With the capability to perform deep learning about each user's personality, background and behaviour, Viola.AI can give them the most relevant and valuable advice, as well as proactively prompt couples before any important relationship milestones and help them solve their challenges early. The dating industry has grown tremendously in the last decade with the rise of technology and emergence of mobile dating services.