The Conference Survival Guide

SoCPar 2010, Paris

I enjoy attending conferences. I never attended a conference when I did not have something to present. This is usually because of the funding, as it is unlikely for me to get funded to a conference when I am not presenting my work. So far, WWW2011 is the only conference that I attended without having a paper to present. Conferences help me fine tune my research, make new friends and build a network. I still vividly recall my first conference, SoCPaR 2010. I was presenting our paper, and luckily for me, I had 3 of my best friends with me. I was not alone. We all were co-authors of the paper, a team effort during our BSc times. I recall presenting the paper confidently and discussing with other researchers. Prof. Ajith Abraham of MIRLABS, who was organizing the conference remarked that he remembered us, a 4-member team arriving in Paris all the way from Sri Lanka to present our paper. It was a nice experience to travel to Paris, my first overseas trip. It was a cold winter, full of snow. The conference was held in Université de Cergy-Pontoise. I met two researchers from the same university in latter conferences, bringing back memories from 2010. 

Be prepared for the delayed luggage

Interestingly, the second conference I presented my paper was again in Paris in 2014. This time, it was MASCOTS, and this was the first paper of my MSc, and also the first paper as the first author. The other conference as part of my MSc research was UCC'14 in London. I met my friend there after a long time, and we had some good chat!

I love visiting different countries and various cities. Attending conferences also offers this opportunity. Moreover, the conferences immediately give you some partners to travel with. You meet some random researchers and make friends with them - because of the shared research interest (or purely because you are from the same university, country, or have something in common other than the research interest). For the rest of the conference, you can explore the city with them.

I try my best to attend all the sessions at the conferences. However, sometimes it is inevitable that I miss one session. Especially the earliest one on the day following my presentation. This is because sometimes I feel tired after the long presentation and its preparations and oversleep the following day. I also enjoy the coffee breaks, lunch times, and the gala dinner. The ideal time to make friends. You are lucky if your presentation comes on the first day. You can relax and enjoy the remaining talks/sessions without having to check your presentation once in a while.

I have attended several conferences during my Ph.D. As a result, I have traveled to several cities: Tempe, AZ, USA (IC2E'15); Berlin, Germany (IC2E'16); San Francisco, CA, USA (AMIA'16 and ICWS'16); Rhodes, Greece (CoopIS'16); Valencia, Spain (SDS'17); Munich, Germany (VLDB'17); Barcelona, Spain (SDS'18); and Zurich, Switzerland (Networking'18). Sometimes, I have one or two additional days following a conference. I use these days to travel to a near-by country or a city.

IFIP Networking'18 is my last conference as a Ph.D. student. It was also my best conference experience so far. I thoroughly enjoyed and actively participated in IFIP where I presented my paper, NetUber. I attended all the sessions. Conferences make me happy. And caffeine helps me remain super-active throughout the whole day of sessions, followed by evening and nightly walks. An overdose of caffeine made me super-active throughout the IFIP sessions. However, after I returned from the conference I became a zombie, with the withdrawal symptoms. :D

Conferences always leave me with good memories - no exceptions so far. They give me more knowledge, and also other experiences with travels. I thank all the conference organizers and volunteers who make sure that we all have good experience attending the conference.

Retina India and WWW2011India

WWW2011 Conference (20th International World Wide Web Conference) was held at HICC (Hyderabad International Convention Centre), Hyderabad, India 28th of March - 1st of April. Chathuri and myself from WSO2 attended the conference as delegates. It was a remarkable trip to Bangalore (26th & 27th, March 2011) and Hyderabad (28th March - 2nd of April 2011).

We attended the 2nd International Workshop on RESTful Design (WS-REST 2011 - 28th March: Proceedings), the 1st International Workshop on Social Media Engagement (SoME 2011 - 29th March), Dev Track – [Mostly Cloud Computing] (30th and 31st, March), and a paper presentation on a few Research Papers on the final day (Information Credibility, Web Applications, and Monetization). Key note speeches were given by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Scientist and ex-president of India), Sir Tim Berners-Lee (The inventor of the world wide web), and Christos H. Papadimitriou (Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley).

There were booths, posters, and exhibits as well. Google, Yahoo!, InfoSys, Tata Consultancy Services, ApnaCircle, Zoho, IET, and some other companies/organizations had their booths during the conference days. But one booth grabbed special attention from most of us. It was the booth from Retina India.

"Retina India is an umbrella organization of people with retinal disorders, their families and friends, which brings them on a common platform with experts such as physicians, researchers, counselors, low vision and mobility experts, and other specialists, such that there is a cohesive focus towards increasing awareness of retinal diseases in society as well as about the people who get affected by them, and inducing innovative research and treatment efforts for such diseases."

It was so impressing and motivating to listen to Mr.L.Subramani, who is a differently abled journalist also a trustee for the organization. He did a small presentation after the social event - a Kuchipudi (తెలుగు : కూచిపూడి) dance (The cultural dance of Andhra Pradesh in India) series from Yamini Reddy and team. We were also able to talk to him in person at the booth of RetinaIndia. His message was clear. It asked the *normal* people to open their eyes. It also had the strong power and message. He invited the developers of the web sites and applications to consider the accessibility aspect of the programs. He pointed out that many applications consider the accessibility by differently abled persons (specially people with vision problems, partial or full blindness), but not many web sites. His suggestion is to involve the differently abled people in the development of the sites and the applications, such that they will be able to take part in shaping up the accessibility of the products.

Retina India became the highlight of the event obviously. I strongly believe their vision will be successful not just in India, but all over the globe. May God bless the good hearts.

As a point to note: WWW2012 will be held at Lyon, France.