FROM THE
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
RECORDS BROKEN IN NEW ORLEANS BY STUART BARNES
Stuart Barnes Programme Chair
2019 IN NUMBERS; OVER 900 ATTENDEES, MORE THAN 50% FROM OVERSEAS, NEARLY 100 ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND 50 POSTERS, BUT SUBOPTIC IS NOT JUST ABOUT RECORDS. THIS IS OUR CONFERENCE, WHICH IS DIFFERENTIATED BY ITS ENRICHED TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION, PRODUCED FOR AND BY MANY OF THE ATTENDEES, NOW READ ON.
A
s a result of two and a half years of intensive planning SubOptic 2019 was held in New Orleans from April 8-11. Stuart Barnes, Programme Chair, takes you through the main highlights below as he hands over the baton to a new Chairperson for SubOptic 2022 in Macau.
DAY 1
The event kicked off with a bang as 70% of all attendees had registered by 11am on the first day surprising us all and causing a massive rethink regarding more mundane issues; how do we cater for this and how do we reconfigure the rooms on day 2 to cater for the now anticipated higher interest in many of the topics? It was standing room only for the first Working Group starting at 9am and this fantastic interest continued to the very last day. Elizabeth’s stellar group gave a clear account of the work on Open Systems and its progress towards standardisation. It also bore testimony to the Sub-
68
SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
Optic Association’s wish to make the Association more relevant to its members between Conferences (more about this later). This was followed later by a Lunch and Learn session on the second Working Group on Professional Development, Diversity and Inclusion given by the indomitable Amy Marks, who successfully battled through quite a few AV issues to describe progress on this essential topic.
All the subsequent Masterclasses were jam packed with an average of just over 200 per class! Over 1200 Certificates of Attendance have now been sent out and the videos of the Masterclasses will shortly be available for all registered attendees to view or review at their leisure. Needless to say, we are extremely grateful to all the contributors to both the Working Groups and the Master-