It is with great pleasure that we introduce the second edition of the Communications of the ACM Latin American Regional Special Section. In this edition, we use this opportunity to showcase some of the region’s most interesting as well as impactful advancements in computer science.
Latin America is a highly heterogeneous continent with great diversity in culture, geography, demography, ethnicities, languages, and science and technology. When it comes to computer science, Latin American researchers have made significant contributions to multiple areas, such as software engineering, databases, networking and distributed systems, artificial intelligence, computer theory, and computer science education. In this Regional Special Section, we present only a small portion of the work researchers in Latin America are currently conducting.
To create this edition, we put out a general call for contributions, receiving submissions from all regions of the continent. We then selected the best works to participate in an online workshop which took place over the course of two days. Ultimately, this process allowed us to narrow down our selection to 18 papers, which we are now happy to feature here. In particular, papers include authors from institutions in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru.
We start by featuring works in the general areas of core Computer Science topics, such as large graph databases, concurrent data structures, privacy, and the biases of artificial intelligence. Then, we introduce works related to novel technical applications, such as cultural heritage, language education, forensic genetics, and social robots.
Societal issues are important drivers for innovation in Latin America. In this regard, we follow with two featured articles that critically address social media’s role in politics and disseminating misinformation. Then, we continue with works that address, from multiple perspectives, the different mechanisms for introducing computer science education effectively in schools (policy, mechanisms, certification, and gender equality).
Finally, we close this edition with works centered around environmental concerns, one on small-scale smart farming and the other on citizen science assisting rainforest conservation.
We hope you enjoy reading this edition as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. For us as co-hosts, it has been a great opportunity to gain a broad perspective of the vast work being done in our region. We trust that this regional special section will motivate researchers and practitioners to collaborate with Latin American researchers and visit the region. As is in our nature, Latin American computer scientists greatly favor collaboration over competition; thus, we encourage you to get involved.
—Fabio Kon, Barbara Poblete, and Sebastian Uchitel, Co-Organizers of the 2024 Latin American Regional Special Section
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