Today’s TNC22 closing plenary, led by GÉANT CEO Erik Huizer and featuring keynote speaker Dr Gihan Kamel, brought to an end a wonderful week full of learning, sharing, and collaborating (as well as catching up with old friends and making new ones) and gave participants an early look ahead to a brand-new host for TNC23.
This year’s TNC was the first #Face2FaceTNC in three years despite some ongoing challenges with international travel, so it’s remarkable and great to see that 735 participants from 69 different nations joined the conference in Trieste, with a further 500+ from 33 different nations following online. They all had the opportunity to watch 122 speakers deliver a total of 64 presentations. And everybody, in Trieste or online, took part on social media: we saw over 1,300 TNC-related posts across social media, 106,000 impressions on the @TNC_GEANT Twitter profile, and an estimated reach of over 2 million impressions worldwide across social media.
SESAME: the glory of science diplomacy
Keynote speaker Dr Gihan Kamel of SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) explained how SESAME is an organisation that seeks to establish excellence of science and technology in the region, functioning as a bridge between its diverse culturally and politically conflicting societies.
Dr Gihan explained the need for science diplomacy and how science itself can drive the change we need for peace, stability, and equality. Check out the latest issue of CONNECT magazine for a full interview with Dr Gihan and the background to her talk.
GÉANT’s next-generation network launched
As part of the closing plenary, GÉANT CEO Erik Huizer spoke about our community and how it fits in the world. In front of a map showing GÉANT’s interconnectivity with global partners he stressed the single, strong message: GÉANT is not alone. These long-established and essential interconnections have been developed over many years, built on the value of trust, and never more important than now.
Bram Peeters, GÉANT Chief Network Operations Officer, then took the audience through the official launch of GÉANT’s exciting next-generation network, planned, procured, and being built under the EC-funded GN4-3N Project – a community-driven project from the start, that is still guided and advised by the Network Infrastructure Advisory Committee (NIAC) that represents NRENs. You can read more about this in the latest issue of the CONNECT magazine.
Did you manage to see everything?
Throughout the final day, participants had been treated to a choice of 12 different sessions including Cloud Services for R&E: a supplier perspective; Crisis and Solutions; From Space to the Ocean Bed; and Quantum Technologies.
Accepting the fact that we can’t all be everywhere at once (yet!) it’s reassuring then that all recorded sessions and slides from the whole conference will be available on https://tnc22.geant.org/ from Monday 20 June.
Looking ahead to TNC23
With much-deserved thanks given to this year’s organisers – from the Programme Committee to the local host to the whole event team (including those from NORDUnet and PSNC), Erik then introduced the host for TNC23 – Albanian NREN RASH who will welcome us next year in Tirana!
As Erik said in his closing remarks, “Every TNC is unique. New cities explored, new themes navigated, new friends made. TNC creates memories, and what we can always guarantee is that new memories are still to come.”
More about TNC22: Day 1 | Day 2
Watch recordings on the TNC22 website: https://tnc22.geant.org/recordings
