Some VIVO Things Blog
Musings on the community, software, data, use, and whatever else comes to mind.
The VIVO Conference, August 6-8, Austin, Texas
This year, VIVO will hold its fifth annual conference. The conference brings together an eclectic group of people – developers, scientists, implementers, vendors, university administrators, non-profits, ontologists, funding agency representatives and more. The first day consists of workshops, followed by two days of presentations and opportunities for meeting people and growing the VIVO community.
While we have papers, and posters, key notes, and invited speakers, it’s not your typical academic conference. Most conferences exist for the purpose of presenting the academic work of the people chosen to present. The VIVO conference has that, but the purpose is quite different. The VIVO conference exists to build community. To build community, we share our work with each other. We also seek out people who are interested in similar topics and find time to talk through opportunities for collaboration and growth. The conference is designed with long breaks so people have the time to stop by after talks and come to share ideas with each other. The conference runs on a conference-wide session schedule – all session breaks occur simultaneously so that people mix after sessions and people in different sessions can share what they have seen and heard.
The first conference was held at the New York Hall of Science in 2010. Built for the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing New York, the Hall of Science is a children’s museum. The conference breakout sessions were held in laboratories. The general sessions were held in a beautiful auditorium. The poster session was held in a gallery in which all the posters were displayed around the walls of the large oval room, visible to all simultaneously. Several of the speakers, myself included, had visited the hall as children. The children of 2010 experienced the museum along with the VIVO conference attendees – children and conference attendees mingling and chatting and having lunch together and having a great time. One of the attendees told me “I was here as a child, and it reminds me why I became a scientist.” Another told me “This is the best conference I have ever attended.” And a third said “Thank you. When I heard we’d be mixed with children, I thought it was crazy. But the energy and enthusiasm is infectious, amazing. Every conference should be like this.”
Our second conference was at the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC. A massive conference center with outstanding amenities, the settings could not have been more different. The day before the workshops, an earthquake hit the DC area, slightly damaging parts of the hotel. The VIVO team gathered in a parking lot, and eventually retreated to a restaurant waiting for the hotel to be reopened and hoping the conference could continue. The hotel was reopened. We had a fire drill in the middle of the opening keynote. On the closing day of the conference, a hurricane bore down on DC and people scrambled to move flights up and escape the storm. Despite the distractions, the conference was a great success. The poster session was held in the penthouse nightclub overlooking the Potomac River and Washington DC at night. The breathtaking view, fantastic setting and enthusiastic attendees contributed to a memorable evening.
2012 brought us to Miami. The conference sponsored a shuttle bus to South Beach for night time fun. We had an opportunity to leave the posters up following the Thursday night session. Friday, conference attendees could continue to discuss the work they had seen – bringing people by to continue discussions started the day before.
The 2013 conference was held in St. Louis. The city provided a perfect setting. The opening reception on the roof of the hotel was followed by a baseball game in Busch Stadium located next door. The downtown area’s linear park full of food trucks provided a great lunch time opportunity for extended discussion. In view of the arch and the Mississippi, attendees had a great opportunity to visit a beautiful city in a part of the country new to many. As with previous conferences, the conference closed with a light hearted interactive session in which the attendees are asked questions about VIVO and their interests and they responded in real-time time using hand-held clickers. This feedback is then used to shape the work of the VIVO community.
Austin, Texas is the site of the 2014 VIVO conference. Austin is one of the most exciting emerging cities in the country, and bills itself as the “live music capital of the world.” Home of many hi-tech companies, as well as a host of famous and not so famous bands, Austin is also known for its food and its nightlife. The conference hotel is right across a beautiful lake from the downtown area with all it has to offer. This year, for the first time, the VIVO conference is being held jointly with the Science of Team Science conference. Attendees of one conference can attend all the sessions of the other. The Science of Team Science conference is also in its fifth year and will bring a fascinating group of people to share their ideas.
I do hope you will be able to join us in Austin, August 6-8. To register, please see the conference web site. See you in Austin!