eResearch 2018 - Final Resume

forykw (64)in #conference • 6 years ago (edited)

Hi there again!

This time, I am making a personal resume of what I have witnessed over the Queenstown eResearch 2018 Conference. I was so lucky to participate in (check my previous post here) it and had the pleasure to enjoy networking with such amazing research enthusiasts.

Location

Queenstown has been one of the most lovely places to attend to eResearch, and I consider it one of the best places for the conference. Although I understand that for many of the Academic population, this is actually a very hard problem to solve.

Queenstown is a very expensive place by default, but on top of it, in overlapping with the Chinese New Year celebration timeframe, it becomes an additional problem because of accomodation demand... and that upwards prices to balance demands/profits to the local economy. If you are a comercial business at this place, you will want to take advantage of this time for sure.

I can't say much but I hope this will change soon... If organizations are really hearing voices!

Content

The eResearch conference is always filled with keynote talks and crazy talks about scientific breakthroughs. This year was not an exception and for the first time in history, the first lightening talk about blockchain was also given on the first day of the conference (by myself). I was not expecting much from the research community, but I got my point well exposed! The blockchain is Here! Research for it...

Blockchain is NOT Bitcoin!

Many people kind of easily associate the "blockchain" word to "bitcoin", and that is easy to guess why, but is still something that does not reflect the reality of what really blockchain is. Therefore I have tried to enforce everywhere I go, by explain that one thing uses the other, but is not AT ALL necessarily related to.

Other than this?

Taking the conference content more serious, you should find contents like:

Data science
Data management
Data orchestration (that most people confuse with data management)
Science in general but with a focus on genetics!
Developments in New Zealand regarding eResearch computing resources and capabilities...

Best resources of New Zealand!

Witnessing the best resources of the country is not only having the ability to be around them... or use them. But instead, the ability to leverage the way they get used in providing real impact into the community of New Zealand. Therefore I only the wish to enchance my "Huge Thanks" and gratitude to the awesome community, I am involved in! The best national group that is focused on providing good research capability and capacity for New Zealand. Without them, we would be diving into Australia claws! Giving up our investments to a different territory.

Research Needs!

Our needs this year look like mostly in the genomics area and data management. But I have a critic to throw against everyone that think the problem of data is over management. Which in my view, is more like a data science problem than the need of sorting how or what to do with the data. Data has already do many details... we just need to record the most importand details and make them strutured, provided we understand the other challenges of Object-Storage classes of storing data.

Scientists have a real problem when reaching for "time to solution" objectives, which in most cases degrades innovative solutions or research quality. So for me the solving explorative action, in regards to blockchain technology, should go directly to finding solutions to those problems that for centruies, no one could solve. If that really helps, then I am sure it will enlight us very much on what Blockchain on research has to teach us.

Remaining talks/content

eResearch is mostly about research, but is often confused by a conference that MUST show research results. That's nothing about it. The aim of the conference is also to show New Zealand, new ideas, concepts or views in how to explore the technology that eventually provides researchers, the right tools to make awesome discoveries!

So yes, come along next time if you think you have something that can challenge science! YOU where to find me...

What about some pictures?

Well, I know it would be much funier to show you all the conference via video/photo blogging right? but then it would not have the same meaning. Conferences are mostly about networking and witnessing others interaction with peoples thoughts. So, for me, reading papers or presentations in a post-event conference, would never have the same value, and I would mostr surely perfer to present it again for anyone requesting it.

Next year I hope to be back into eResearch with some extra juice about real applications in research and if possible, from New Zealand. So please let me know if you are brewing something that can actually take place by end of 2018.

I have tried to stress as much as I could the Utopian.io (from @utopian-io) project in eResearch. Since I beleive it applies to many situations and especially to new venture researchers. This is a good "How To" post about it if you wish to follow up on it.

Stay safe and bring the best of you! See you nest year.