Chair of the GÉANT Board Andreas Dudler and GÉANT CEO Erik Huizer today opened TNC22, the first #Face2FaceTNC in three years, in Trieste, Italy.
After welcoming the global GÉANT community with warm words and big smiles, Andreas and Erik introduced the theme behind TNC22: Navigating the Unexplored. They stressed how this underpins the whole thinking behind the event: coming together to share knowledge, to learn, and to collaborate for the benefit of research and education in the future. Reference was made to how the fight against COVID-19 illustrated the importance of what our community does, and what it enables. As Andreas stated, “Researchers need to work well together, and closer together, and our GÉANT community sits in a key position to enable that in Europe.”
Participants were then welcomed to Trieste by host NREN GARR’s Federico Ruggieri, after which the audience was shown a very emotional video recorded for TNC22, from our partner in Ukraine, URAN.
The video address by Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi, Executive Director of URAN, showed the stark reality of what he and his team in URAN are facing every day. And again, he highlights the importance of our community and the way it works: “I feel the impact of my work for Ukraine like never before.”
Following the event live on the TNC22 online portal, GÉANT’s Akileswaran Radhakrishnan responded on behalf of us all when he posted, “Yevhenii, so proud of you and the URAN colleagues. Stay positive and keep going, our thoughts are with you.”
Climate emergency
Keynote speaker Filippo Giorgi (Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)) then reminded us all of the climate emergency: how it has come about, what researchers are doing about it, and how R&E networking can help. He reminded us all how vulnerable humankind is and how a rise in global temperatures could have catastrophic consequences. As work progresses on creating Digital Twins of the Earth, and with such a big data challenge, our GÉANT community is well placed to help.
Celebrating our Silent Heroes
With everybody’s attention on the importance of people and reconnecting with old colleagues they value so dearly, it seems rather natural that we followed this opening by announcing the winners of the 2022 GÉANT Community Award, and this year’s recipient of the Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour.
Our congratulations go to Paul Dekkers of SURF, and Tryfon Chiotis of GÉANT as joint winners of the GÉANT Community Award. And congratulations also to Natalia Manola, recipient of this year’s Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour.
A week of learning, sharing, and collaborating in Trieste
TNC22 is delivering a packed programme of keynote speakers, presentations, demonstrations, Lightning Talks, and workshops. And for those who cannot travel, the sessions can be followed via the online portal (registration required).
If you aren’t able to join us this week in person, or online, please note all recorded sessions will be available on tnc22.geant.org after the event closes.
And don’t forget the #Face2FaceTNC campaign! Join on Twitter and remember to tag @TNC_GEANT and @GEANTnews.
