Honorary Professorship

When I arrived to give my talk at Technical University of Varna at 2 PM today, I was presented with a great surprise. They requested me to meet the Rector (Vice Chancellor) of the University. There I was told that I was going to be awarded ‘Honorary Professorship� in a special ceremony. This was a big surprise to me – I had no idea that they had such a plan. I definitely felt flattered. I was explained the whole ceremony – particularly because much of it was going to be in Bulgarian. I had to wear a gown required for the ceremony. I was given a certificate and a plaque – depicting the gowning – at the ceremony.

My talk went well. There was a good audience. I talked about the importance of visual information retrieval in the current technology space. Presented a brief review of image and video retrieval and mentioned what I consider important problems in this space. There were good set of questions after the presentation.

I am still trying to get over the recognition and award that I was given – and I find it interesting that I was not even given a hint of this.