My greatest concern with the many machine learning conferences in New York this year was the relatively high cost that implied, particularly for hotel rooms in Manhattan. Keeping the conference affordable for graduate students seems critical to what ICML is really about.

The price becomes much more reasonable if you can find roommates to share the price. For example, the conference hotel can have 3 beds in a room.

This still leaves a coordination problem: How do you find plausible roommates? If only there was a website where the participants in a conference could look for roommates. Oh wait, there is. Conferenceshare.co is something new which might measurably address the cost problem. Obviously, you’ll want to consider roommate possibilities carefully, but now at least there is a place to meet.

Note that the early registration deadline for ICML is May 7th.