As COVID-19 spreads across the world, governments & health organisations have asked populations to exercise confinement and social-distancing as means to alleviate stress on hospitals.
Our goals as ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters are to connect, promote and inform global CG communities, but also to mindfully prevent any harm our activities could cause. With this in mind, many chapters have already suspended all in-person activities until the end of the COVID-19 epidemic.
In the past few weeks, a number of organisations have had to cancel their conferences. We will keep you informed as to any developments with SIGGRAPH 2020 which is currently still planned to foster inspiration and progress 19–23 July in Washington, D.C.
Finally, as a silver lining, here is a list of recent generous acts and online events from our industry that we think can be shared with everyone to help in their social-distancing:
- GDC 2020 Virtual Talks, Awards Streaming For Free All Week!
- TOONBOOM providing their studios and educational institutions free 30 day home use licenses for their staff, teachers and/or students.
- GOLAEM are transferring any commercial licenses to personal machines or home-workers.
- SUBSTANCE reset the trials for everyone to get 30 days to try their latest updates, for free. (Reminder that Substance is free for Students and Teachers)
- Google for Games Developer Summit a full day of streamed talks on March 23 from Google that you can signup for free
- IEEE VR is now an online conference you can register here for free
- NVIDIA Shifts GTC San Jose to Online Event Due to Coronavirus
- Amazing Educational Resources – Companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings.
- Many Video Conferencing & Collaboration offering free or cheaper service during the pandemic (Which could help you run remote events during self-confinement)
The list grows day by day, so we’ll be maintaining and updating this blog post. We encourage you to tweet your suggestions to @SIGGRAPH_PSCC to be added to the list!
Stay home, Stay safe!
Professional & Student Chapters Committee (PSCC)