For many academics a formal letter (letterhead, logo and the full catastrophe) is needed to assist in gaining funding to participate in a conference. This was offered to those presenting, approximately 20 academics and PhD students took up the offer. This is the template for academics:
address
date
Dear Offical Title and Name
As Academic Chair of the 5th International Digital Arts and Culture Conference (MelbourneDAC) I would like to invite you to present your paper 'paperNameHere' at the conference in Melbourne during May of this year. This paper will make a valuable contribution to the conference.
I would also like to invite you to consider being a session chair during the event, and also to participate in the various forums that we are developing.It is well recognised that conferences form a significant aspect of professional development, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge gain for academics.
However, beyond presenting current research many conferences only rely on informal and largely self initiated activities for such professional development. MelbourneDAC intends to provide a series of activities, events, and forums that are designed to facilitate the various professional development activities that an international conference ought to foster. This includes such things as ensuring that the conference allows individuals to establish a sustainable network of peers, postgraduate mentoring opportunities, collaborative and peer defined panels and forums, and specific social activities that will provide various processes to encourage dialogue between delegates around cognate professional practices, research, and teaching.
To achieve this I am encouraging all participants who are attending MelbourneDAC to participate in a full range of conference activities, and to emphasise that this conference is not a 'talk and walk' event. Your participation in this process will be valuable and significant, and as a presenter at the conference your contribution will be substantial and well recognised by your peers.
As a major international conference MelbourneDAC provides an excellent opportunity to not only foreground your research but to actively participate in an ongoing debate about future directions in the broad fields of digital arts and culture. As Academic Chair of MelbourneDAC I hope you are able to accept my invitation to participate.
Yours sincerely
Adrian Miles
MelbourneDAC academic chair