|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: post |
| 3 | +title: all conferences and events i have attended from 2019 - 2024 |
| 4 | +date: 2024-11-27 23:00:00 +0000 |
| 5 | +category: blog |
| 6 | +published: false |
| 7 | +--- |
| 8 | +_**Note 11/2:** I haven't added all the links to recordings or slides. I'll aim to add those soon, but in the meantime, have just added this as a new column._ |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +Here's a list of all the research and/or practice-oriented festivals/conferences I have either attended in full or presented at over the past few years. I might have forgotten a few, but I've added the ones where I either have presented a talk, and/or have joined a workshop or event (or it was particularly memorable - and seems apt to add here). The grouping of 'festival' and 'conference' is semantic, but they generally involve research and technology ([in a broad sense](https://www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about-technology)). There are a few exceptions to this: The Turing Way's Fireside Chats from 2022 and 2023 (which I lead organised alongside many others), as well as our bi-annual Book Dashes. These are quite different events (especially as an organiser), and I'd like to write about them separately. |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +Reviewing all of these events took me across a few different mediums: from twitter (when I used it as a public note-taking tool) to youtube, to personal notes and more. I've linked a few, if anything for myself. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +| Talk | Time | Mode | Notes | Recording / Slides | |
| 15 | +|------ | ------ | ------ | ---------- | ----- | |
| 16 | +| FOSDEM | Feb 2021 | 💻 - remote | As a part of my MA research, I tuned into this conference online as I saw many OSMers were attending. I ended up listening to a [talk by Maya Anderson-González](https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/open_research_floss_meet_social_science/) that shifted my perspective on the relationship between F/LOSS and social science, and made me think that I could find a space in 'open source' too. | |
| 17 | +| Open Data Days | Mar 2021 | 💻 - remote | I designed the [poster](https://twitter.com/CultureDoug/status/1366390258431119363) & helped to find speakers with a few [Frictionless Fellows](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1365005658739929088). I think this might have been the first time I presented in a public forum online. | |
| 18 | +| Mozilla Festival | Mar 2021 | 💻 - remote | Facilitated a discussion about [supply chains](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1368156022033051650) with Miriam Matthiessen, solidifying a collaboration we had at that time. We ended up applying to the UNLOCK Accelerator with Wikimedia Deutschland, and learned a lot. This was my first time organizing and facilitating an experimental workshop like this (and wouldn't have been possible without Miriam!). | |
| 19 | +| Sustainability Week Switzerland | Mar 2021 | 💻 - remote | Joined the organising team for this student-led conference & moderated a [panel about Gross National Happiness](https://twitter.com/kmjefford/status/1375041795827060743) with speakers from Switzerland and Bhutan (where I studied abroad as an undergrad). This was my first time moderating a panel more broadly, and really felt like I was connecting influential experiences from my BA & MA together. A full circle moment. |
| 20 | +| csv,CONF | May 2021 | 💻 - remote | This conference was honestly quite [similar to the previous one](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1389970868273569794). Uploaded to [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/records/4739237) for the first time. This conference exposed me to a lot of amazing projects in the open ecosystem, and new ways of thinking about open source/data/government more broadly as a practitioner. It was insanely surreal to follow a talk by Creative Commons CEO Catherine Stihler – I was just another MA student at the time, and really felt like I had "made it". I even applied to a job whose project I first learned about through csv,CONF. |
| 21 | +| RightsCon | June 2021 | 💻 - remote | Recorded a talk for this conference. It really felt like our relationship with online conference hit a wall around this time – as I remember engagement being quite low on the platform AccessNow created for it. We were all a bit burnt out of our screens at this point. |
| 22 | +| GRiSTS | Oct 2021 | 💻 - remote | This was my first* academic conference, and where I presented my [work-in-progress MA research](https://wcfia.harvard.edu/event/grists-conference-10-28-21) for the first time outside of my programme. I was terrified, and remember being placed with speakers who _also_ seemed to straddle the line between critical study and practice. I remember tuning into the other speakers, and being initimidated by the clarity with which they were able to convey their research, but I also remember |
| 23 | +| HOT Summit | Nov 2021 | 💻 - remote | This was the first time I shared my MA research _with_ folks in the OpenStreetMap (or in this case, the humanitarian mapping) community. The reaction I received at the time was so positive. I remember feeling nervous about how they would react to this critical work, but happy that anthropological studies were getting out of the academy and into the (digital) hands of people. I had looked to other social science researchers like [Martin Dittus and David Garcia](https://2019.stateofthemap.org/sessions/F9D8QG/), who had presented their work at State of the Map in 2019. |
| 24 | +| Transmediale Rendering Research | Mar 2022 | 💻 - remote & 🏛️ - in-person | This workshop was the final collaboration between Miriam and myself, and one of the most. We were based at an art school (that had a wiki for a homepage), and wrote about [maintenance as an ethos as researchers](https://aprja.net//article/view/134303), something that [really affected](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1525047942771576832) my approach to The Turing Way when I first joined the team. |
| 25 | +| Internet Society Community Day | Jul 2022 | 💻 - remote | I started this fellowship before |
| 26 | +| Connected Life | July 2022 | 🏛️ - in-person | Presented research from my fellowship with the [internet society](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1539523538821996545), the first time i've done an academic-ish presentation in-person! It was really interesting to attend (alongside my colleague Jennifer Ding, who also shared her work), as it was the first time I realised how much my perspectives were changing as a 'practitioner' in open source, not only as a 'researcher'. Meaning I was interested in the outcome as much as the process. |
| 27 | +| State of the Map | Aug 2022 | 🏛️ - in-person | This was the sShared my [MA research](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1560560865740750849) with the OpenStreetMap community |
| 28 | +| CarpentryCon | Aug 2022 | 💻 - remote | |
| 29 | +| DIY Methods | Sep 2022 | 💌 - mail | This is perhaps the most creative conference I have ever participated in. I made a . It really challenged my ways of thinking about academic |
| 30 | +| Research for Genomics Equity | Oct 2022 | 🏛️ - in-person | I remember feeling like I knew nothing about data in the health context, and learned a lot from being in this environment. We also got to experiment with what it means to bring people together collaboratively in a physical space (something I hadn't done in quite a long time). |
| 31 | +| Big Team Science | Oct 2022 | Co-facilitated a workshop around [research infrastructure roles](https://twitter.com/aleesteele/status/1585287851469586432) | |
| 32 | +| Global Dynamics in Responsible Research Virtual Symposium | Dec 2022 | 💻 - remote | This was the first time I had |
| 33 | +| Duham RIOT Science Club | Dec 2022 | 💻 - remote | Here, I co-presented with someone who soon became my colleague at the Turing (but was at that time a community member and lead of the ). I learned a lot about collaborative presentation-making , as while I had good ideas about topics of 'knowledge equity' that might be valuable for the talk, I also remember that I was too busy and overwhelmed to 'collaborate' properly. |
| 34 | +| FOSDEM | Feb 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | It was wild to return to Brussels in a completely different capacity. I remember being distinctly overwhelmed by the size of the conference. It was also a joy to be invited to return – and to possible help organise the following year... little did I know. |
| 35 | +| State of Open Con | Feb 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | |
| 36 | +| Open Data Days | Mar 2023 | 💻 - remote | This was the first of a few collaborations with Jennifer Ding, my colleague whose work focused on AI. We had been trading perspectives over the past few months, and this was the first time we piloted an 'experimental' workshop about participatory AI/data practices that applied some of the interactive workshop experience I'd had from my experiments with Miriam. |
| 37 | +| FOSS Backstage | Mar 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | This was one of my favorite talks that I gave last year, with Danny Garside. We talked about the ethos of maintenance, and what that meant for the TTW project. |
| 38 | +| AI-UK | Mar 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | |
| 39 | +| Mozilla Festival | Mar 2023 | 💻 - remote | Hilariously, I think I gave this workshop with Jennifer Ding in the volunteer staff room of AI-UK, as the two had overlapping dates. This conference |
| 40 | +| Feeling Machines | Apr 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | I attended this conference over . It was great to return to Bristol (a city I have lived in off and on since 2019 and for 5 months in 2022), . It was incredible – so different. I participated in a workshop about choreography by someone who I now feel lucky to call a friend named Joana Chicao. |
| 41 | +| Data Justice | Apr 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | I had first followed this workshop online in 2021, so it was surreal to attend in person, and to present a talk on open infrastructures for knowledge, comparing my experiences over the past few years. It was a place where I became keenly a |
| 42 | +| Riot! Science | Jul 2023 | | Gave this talk with Batool Almarzouq - |
| 43 | +| Collaborations Workshop | May 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | |
| 44 | +| Moving frontiers of the demos | Jun 2023 | | |
| 45 | +| Venice Biennale Festival | Jul 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | This was one of the most impactful experie. I was with my friend Ruben, and we . We saw the exhibits for Estonia (titled 'home') featuring a performance artist that made us feel at home, and . |
| 46 | +| Big Team Science | Oct 2023 | 💻 - remote | I returned to BTS this year, this time with two other folks (Esther Plomp and Danny Garside) to give an "anti-panel" about Research Infrastructure. |
| 47 | +| Hack the Hackathon 3.0 | Nov 2023 | 🏛️ - in-person | I was invited to return to Geneva to present research |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +*Previously, I had given only one academic presentation at the end of my BA back in 2017, at a gathering of officials in Thimphu, Bhutan (but that's another story)... |
| 50 | +**I didn't realise how important fellowships can be for inspiration and for career growth (or even networking). This has absolutely been the case for me, and I'm definitely planning to write another blog about this. |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +I also thought that it might be worth asking which conferences I _didn't_ attend as well, for a variety of reasons: |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +| Talk | Time | Mode | Notes | |
| 56 | +|------ | ------ | ------ | ------ | |
| 57 | +| csv,conf,v7 | April 2023 | ❌ - didn't attend | I remember having discussions with my colleague about. |
| 58 | +| Open Science and Social Justice | Jul 2023 | ❌ - didn't attend | I remember having discussions with my colleague about. |
| 59 | +| London Data Week | Jul 2023 | ❌ - didn't attend | I remember having discussions with my colleague about. |
| 60 | +| Festival of OpenREF | Oct 2023 | ❌ - didn't attend | The REF (and HiddenREF initiative) was one of the first UK-research initiatives I heard about after joining the Turing. While I couldn't join this event, I was a part of planning processes (and learned about the ecosystem of folks that circulate around the event.) |
| 61 | +| AI Safety Summit Fringe events | Nov 2023 | ❌ - didn't attend | I |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +I wouldn't pretend to be anything other than a beginner in this space. |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +There's still a lot that I don't know about research (both the meta infrastructure behind it) and technology (from creating to maintaining it, to designing and critiquing it) |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +Why did I do this review, you might asking? |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +Pen Yuan-Tsing, a member of The Turing Way community was preparing a presentation on [Epistemologies in Open Science]() for FOSDEM ORDEM 2024, which happened on 10 February – and he posted in our slack workspace.. While I can trace the lineage of ,. |
0 commit comments