FOODSIM20/PROTECT WORKSHOP 1 IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 – RODNEY J. FELICIANO
The PROTECT project is not only about training and seminars but also scientific conferences. Events such as these lie at the heart of scientific activity and serves as a venue for communicating initial scientific results and networking. Being an ESR, a neophyte in academia it serves an introduction of sorts to the “greater” subset of the academic sphere. One might even say that it is a sort of plunge into the deeper part of the pool or the acclimatization step prior to the challenge testing. Nevertheless, one cannot underestimate the brevity and simplicity of our presentations for experiences such as these will be part of our treasure trove of learnings. On top of this is the current COVID-19 pandemic and the current rising infections that added a constraint to intercountry movement. As such, most of my fellow ESRs were not able to physically attend the conference and give our talks. For this part of the blog, I will be presenting the part of being present physically in the unique session of the FOODSIM conference.
Out of the 8 ESRs, only two were able to attend and I was the only one from outside Belgium that was able to attend the conference, the other was Lydia the ESR in Belgium. Making it to the conference was not easy because of the uncertainty of the situation. With rising cases several days prior to the events, the restriction of travel from certain areas of France to Belgium also started to occur. If not for the push given to me by my supervisor, I would have decided to cancel attending. I managed to push through by changing my initial travel route and bypassing around Paris which is a red zone at that time. This worked, but several days later after arriving in Ghent, I heard that Nantes was also declared a red zone due to the increase in the COVID cases. Indeed, the timing of the conference and my movement proved providential, and looking back, I consider these small decisions and timings as those times when the stars aligned and seemed to work for me.
The FOODSIM 2020 indeed will go down in history as the time where it was first held in a hybrid setting, partly on-site and mostly online. Being onsite meant that I am one of the very few who have managed to go to Belgium, there were others from France and the other attendees from the Biotech+, the hosting institution. Attending the conference is quite the same as the traditional conferences. The difference brought by online presentation didn’t matter much as it proceeded smoothly and the delivery of talks and topics was not less engaging. For me, I opted to still present my prerecorded presentation while the other ESRs who didn’t have internet connection problems have opted to do it live online. However, the greatest difference was in the loss of opportunity to socialize and know the presenters. Aside from communication and presentation, scientific activities are also venues of networking and casual discussion. It is the chance to move beyond the journal articles, monographs, and lectures to informal discussions where the concepts, results presented, and ideas surrounding these are discussed freely and in a less structured manner. Also, these informal discussions if found fruitful and promising may be an entry point of networking and fruitful collaboration.
The conference was followed up by a PROTECT workshop which consisted of training and software presentation. The talks and demo in these sessions were engaging and proceeded smoothly with very minimal internet disruptions. I was able to ask questions easily via the chat feature of Zoom. This was done using the chat box in asking questions efficiently can be done by asking them numbered and formulating these in a concise manner. For me this setup allowed me to communicate my questions clearly and concisely. Overall, the hybrid setup of the conference and PROTECT session proceeded very well despite the constraints.
