Eminent data mining researchers, academics and practitioners from across the world are honing their presentation skills and charging their laptops in readiness for the industry's largest and most respected conference, this year being staged for the first time in Europe, in the city of Paris.

The Knowledge Discovery and Data mining 2009 (KDD-09) event will bring together more than 600 specialists, representing the single largest body of expertise in the science and application of data mining technology for industry, government and academia. They will discuss recent discoveries in data mining and share innovative ways of applying the technology in real world business.

Running from the 28th June to 1st July, KDD-09 will feature more than 120 presentations by experts from the US, Europe, Scandinavia and Asia-Pacific. A 20% increase in papers submitted reflects the growing importance of data mining in financially constrained markets. Companies taking part include Orange as a platinum sponsor and Microsoft adCenterLabs and KXEN as gold sponsors. Silver sponsors are Bayesia, Google, HP labs, Pervasive, SAS, Vadis and Yahoo!. Other sponsors include Alberta Center for Machine Learning, Pascal2, Socio Logiciels, Statsoft, Zementis, SFDS, IBM and SIGMOD.

Joint general chair of KDD-09, Francoise Soulie Fogelman, VP Business Development KXEN, says the conference offers a unique chance to see the very latest thinking in data mining. "Some of the best minds from the scientific and business communities will be there, ready and willing to share the results of their cutting edge research and data mining projects with end users. No other industry event offers anything like the depth and breadth of expertise on offer here."

A particular focus for 2009 will be social network analysis: the discovery and use for competitive advantage of the links between people in social and professional networks. Currently a hot topic among data mining professionals - especially those working in the telecommunications sector - this technique will feature in theoretical and workshop presentations. Details will also be revealed of the world's first practical applications involving industrial scale volumes of data. Gold sponsor KXEN will present on its booth its recently revealed KSN social network module, helping companies extract valuable new intelligence for better customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell and up-sell campaigns.

Also high on the agenda are real-time Web applications for data mining for custom advertising and personalized offers, both seen as crucial to online marketing and sales but both also requiring technologies able to handle very large volumes of data in real time.

Other exhibitors include sponsors as well as Cambridge University Press, Cap Digital, Elsevier, Morgan Claypool Publishers, Oracle, Salford Systems, Springer and Taylor & Francis CRC press.

Away from science and technology, delegates will also have a chance to sample the best of Paris architecture and hospitality on the evening of 29th June in the main reception room at the exclusive Hotel de Ville - a venue normally reserved for visiting heads of state. A cocktail reception hosted by KXEN will follow presentations, including a welcome from Jean-Louis Missika, the Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of Innovation, Research and Universities.

There will also be the presentation of awards and the KDD cup by Dr. Isabelle Guyon (ClopiNet). The cup is awarded to the winners of a contest around predicting customer scores from large marketing databases. It, and other prize awards, are being sponsored by the French telecommunications company Orange and Google.

KDD-09 is organized by the data mining special interest group of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society.  The ACM provides resources that advance computing both as a science and a profession. ACM provides the computing field's premier digital library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources.

More details, program & registration: http://www.kdd.org/kdd2009/index.html