Statement by the SIGCOMM Executive Committee

June 6, 2016

The SIGCOMM Executive Committee, along with the 2016 organization committee, has been closely monitoring the Zika virus situation in Brazil. Our concern led us to relocate the conference from Salvador to Florianópolis, a city in Southern Brazil that is as far away from Salvador as Toronto is from Miami.

Florianópolis has a generally cooler climate than the northern part of the country. Moreover, it will be winter there in August, with daily average highs around 20C (70F) and average lows of 17C (62F). The city lies in Santa Catarina state and the latest bulletin from the state can be found here. Information from the CDC can be found here.

This is the first time that SIGCOMM is being held in Latin America. The Latin American community is traditionally under-represented at SIGCOMM conferences and we see this as a unique opportunity for outreach. Indeed, we are leveraging this location to host, for the first time a Workshop on Fostering Latin-American Research in Data Communication Networks. This workshop has the highest number of submissions of all workshops this year. We also anticipate attendance by a large number of students and faculty from the region, which would be impossible if we hosted the conference elsewhere.

We understand that some researchers may choose not to travel to Brazil. Hence, we will do everything in our power to accommodate people unwilling to attend SIGCOMM in person. For instance, we will record and disseminate presentations in a timely manner. We encourage presenters who feel concerned to contact the SIGCOMM EC so that we can work with local organizers to arrange a solution that will work for them.

We hope that these steps will address any concerns from members of the SIGCOMM community. Please feel free to contact either of us or any other member of the EC with your comments and feedback.

S. Keshav <keshav@uwaterloo.ca>
Chair, ACM SIGCOMM

Renata Teixeira <renata.teixeira@inria.fr>
Chair, ACM SIGCOMM