On behalf of the JuliaCon organising committee, I want to announce that JuliaCon 2021 will be held online. While the end might be in sight for COVID-19 with vaccine rollouts in some parts of the world, we are not confident that travel will be back to normal globally by next summer. Hence, we think it makes sense to apply our learnings from this year towards another online conference.
The main conference will take place on Wednesday-Friday, July 28-30. Workshops will be held in the days and weeks prior, leading up to the main event. Like this year, registration will be required, but tickets will be free.
The CFP will be released in mid January, with proposals due by mid March. We hope to continue to receive an impressive array of talk proposals, from beginners and experienced Julia programmers alike.
See you all on the interwebs next summer.
Avik Sengupta & Jane Herriman
co-Chairs, JuliaCon 2021
I agree it is prudent to make the main event online, but by July, I suspect it might be ok in certain parts of the world to have small gatherings so maybe there can be local satellite events around the world by then. If it makes sense, I’d love to have a Bay Area (SF) satellite event and happy to help organize.
True, but…
Many professional societies are thinking about this now, right now. If the vaccination rate is 50% in July, which is likely the upper bound, and younger people ( <= 30? 40? …) are still standing in line, it’s hard to schedule a face-to-face meeting, even on a regional scale.
IMHOP JuliaCon did exactly the right thing. It’s a fairly large conference and hotels and space need to be resolved pretty early. For regional/local gatherings, we can afford to put off a decision for a few months. Things might be much easier to understand in March than they are now,
I’d like an in-person mini-JuliaCon in late July if I can go and live. Since I’m in the old people category, I expect to get a vaccine well before then, The vaccine schedule is not so clear for those under 30.
Data point: the US applied math society (SIAM) is worried about their meetings after July 1 and it’s not clear what the outcome will be. It is clear that a decision (in-person (no way), hybrid or virtual) has to get made within a couple months (or sooner) so speakers can make plans.
I would like to register. I am a newbie medical epidemiologist and surgeon to julia… R and python being the tools now… Want to shift to julia…not yet confident enough to shift the analysis entirely too Julia.
Will need more guidance
I would also mention that making it online allows the participation of people that would never have the opportunity otherwise. I think a challenge in the future will be to learn from this experience and keep the on-line broadcasting of the conferences as much as possible. If one good thing came out of this is the worldwide access to group meetings, department seminars, and conferences of all around the world.
Yes, doing a local “viewing party” is a great idea. We’ll obviously need some local organisers in each geography, but it’ll be a great way to take advantage of local openings in different parts of the world. We should try to formalise and publicise this nearer the time.
. Welcome!