The first CEDAS conference
The very first CEDAS-conference (Center for Data Science at the University of Bergen) was held the 1st and 2nd of June both virtually and physically in Bergen.
Hovedinnhold
The very first CEDAS-conference (Center for Data Science at the University of Bergen) was held the 1st and 2nd of June both virtually and physically in Bergen. This marked the first time in well over a year when people from different institutions and units around Bergen got to meet up and talk to each other in person.
Data science in Bergen – in all its forms.
Helwig Hauser, Head of CEDAS, was very pleased that participants could choose to meet physically at the conference hall in the hotel.
“When you meet face to face, like this, you can have unplanned encounters. If you listen to a talk and find it interesting, you can easily talk to the speaker afterwards, even if you didn’t consider that ahead of the conference. Starting new connections is definitely much harder from your home office.”
A particularly important aspect of the CEDAS conferences 2021 was networking, and Hauser stresses the importance of bringing together participants with varying background from all over Bergen, rather than from a specific field in data science.
“There are quite a few people who work with data science in Bergen, yet working across disciplines is not that common. To stimulate interdisciplinary work in data science, it is important that we get to know each other. In that regard, it’s great that we had participants with largely varied expertise, including scientists from technology and humanities”, says Hauser, who wishes to encourage a wide spectrum of thoughts within data science.
Christoph Trattner, director of MediaFutures and speaker, enjoyed the event and program. «Although I was a bit rusty with the clicker and prompter, the real life presence made it easier for everyone to have a laugh about it together,” he says, and praises the work of the organisers and Kulturoperatøren for making it work out so well.
Although this was the first CEDAS conference, both hosts and participants have been hopeful it will happen again in a year or two.