The History of ACM Central
The Association for Computing Machinery is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. Based in New York City, the ACM is made up of more than 100,000 individuals from across the globe.
International Origins
The Association for Computing Machinery was founded as the Eastern Association for Computing Machinery at a meeting at Columbia University in New York on September 15, 1947. The purpose of the organization would be to "advance the science, development, construction, and application of the new machinery for computing, reasoning, and other handling of information." More information on the founding of the Association for Computing Machinery at large can be found on the ACM's official website.
University of Central Oklahoma
The student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery at the University of Central Oklahoma was founded on December 1, 1994 as the UCO Computer Science Club. This student organization was founded with the purpose of promoting fellowship between the students of the Computer Science Department at UCO. In May 2016, the UCO Computer Science Club rebranded itself and was hence known at UCO as the "Association for Computing Machinery at the University of Central Oklahoma." At the same time, the ACM Student Chapter launched a new initiative, to become an umbrella organization and be the parent organization to a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), in a similar fashion to the ACM's international SIGs. This was an incredibly successful move, nearly quadrupling the active membership.
Formation of the Professional Chapter
Upon seeing the great success of the Special Interest Groups, it became apparent that formation of a professional chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery in Central Oklahoma would be necessary to continue the expansion of the field of computer science in Oklahoma. On April 24, 2018 a request was submitted to the headquarters of the Association for Computing Machinery, and on May 1, 2018 the Edmond ACM Chapter was launched.