In an effort to get back “in shape” for OSCon, I really got to pump this out. If I head into Portland with my current habits, it will be tough to keep up. So here it goes.
Well, my participation in my first ever scientific (or should I say academic) convference was a mixed bag of experiences. As mentioned in the brief posts I made while I was there, not having consistent and reliable Internet access was a shock. I think it was such a shock that I never really recovered my balance and established a rhythm. I mention this because I believe that it is very important while attending a conference to have a smooth rhythm. It’s all about habit and accustom. In different environments some people refer to this as being in the flow or in the zone. When behavior is second-nature we are more productive. So without the Internet I lost my rhythm and never really recovered.
Additional factors also kept me off balance. My expectation was that because the conference was about Information Technology, that most of the participants would be software related. This assumption was wrong, because most of the speakers were engineers. I’m totally believe that mixing different areas of specialties together it creates a more powerful team, however in this situation I felt like the odd man out. This feeling was amplified by the fact that I am from private industry and everyone else was from academia. I know, duh, it was an academic conference.
One of the things that further disoriented me was the disorganization of the conference. The president of the Domincan Republic opened the conference and that screwed the schedule for the whole first day. Unfortunately this trend continued on the second day, even though there were no major disruptions. Finally some minor irritations added fuel to the fire: the food sucked, the conference facilities were divided, the Internet at the conference went out for almost 24 hours, and a bunch of speakers never showed up at the conference which caused the organizers to move speeches
I’ll stop my whining now and share my take aways. Despite everything I still managed to meet some fantastic people. I came away inspired by the great passion most of the educators there had for their students and areas of research. A couple of themes kept appearing in speech after speech. First, globalization is also influencing the academic arena. This most definitely dove tails with my research and observations. Something to consider when my daughters get ready to begin their higher education is the recommendation by some speakers to internationalize their education. The basic premise is that it will be easier to understand globalization if you witness it first hand. A second trend was the emphasis on collaboration. Again, I say right on brother. Collaboration, competitive cooperation, sharing, and partnering I believe will become “steroids” (As Thomas Friedman calls certain world flatteners). They will make small and medium sized business bigger and better able to compete with multinationals. It will also make the lone researcher or entrepreneur reap the very same benefits. The final trend was the coincidence of multiple projects reaching the same conclusions, but from different perspectives, environments, and objectives A curiosity indeed, but also proof, for me, that research and investigation is an endeavor this connects us all. Regardless of the differences we insist we have, we are all basically the same and we are all moving in the same basic direction.
In the end, attending the 6th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training was extremely rewarding. I met someone from the Domincan Republic that would like some Linux training and others that represent future collaborators from around the world. Preparing the SNAP Development Center’s paper “Using Open Source to Enhance Learning” was a great experience. In addition, it ensures that the legacy of the project will always be available from the IEEE archives.
