The Annual Industrial Forum Meeting 2020 has taken place on 26th November 2020 as an Online Event. The topics this year ranged from COVID-19 over Plant bioinformatics to new de.NBI Industrial Services. In our opinion the event was a success even though it had to be performed virtually.
To check what the attendees of the event were thinking about the event we conducted a short survey after the event. The results are encouraging!
Most people liked the event and the format of the meeting. Over 80 % considered the information content as high and would recommend the future events to their colleages. With 90 % the speakers' quality was rated highest among all questions asked.
Furthermore we asked how attendees became aware of the event. The vast majority heard about the event via Email invitation, around 20 % via the de.NBI Website and around 15 % by other channels.
Several comments and suggestions as well as criticism were also mentioned by the attendees of the survey, which we would like to address in the following.
Comment 1
For an online event, I thought the meeting was very good. Hope to see a live event next year. Thank you very much for organizing!
Thank you for enjoying the annual meeting of the de.NBI Industry Forum 2020!
Comment 2
I particularly liked the "Customer-Success-Story" presentations. The event should be further expanded in this area in the future. The academic part is important to show new industry representatives which use cases the cloud already supports today. A focus or dedicated event for small businesses and startups might also be interesting to highlight for them the advantages of the de.NBI Cloud over commercial offerings.
We would be happy to try to include more customer success stories in future events, if the focus of the event allows it. The de.NBI Cloud is available to industry forum members as part of academic research projects. We will highlight this better in future events.
Comment 3
Short flash talks on the subject of newly acquired Industrial Forum members are interesting and important. Application of APEER this year was a prime example. Thanks for that!
To keep the online event within a manageable time frame, we did not have a flash talk session this year. However, we will gladly take up this note again at a face-to-face event.
Comment 4
From my point of view, the event was one-sided in the sense that industry made contributions / software to the network and that the network itself presented the support and services it provides for science. However, there was not a single point in which it was presented what advantages or possible uses the industry has around the network or could possibly have in the future. No plans / activities in this direction were shown either.
Due to the limited duration of the event, this point was not addressed in as much detail this year as at the Face-2-Face event in 2019. We will try to find a better presentation of benefits and possible uses of de.NBI for industry next time.
Comment 5
At an online event: breakout rooms for discussion or ask again at the end if there are still questions. Further, you would need to get participants to better identify themselves. [...] Possibly also ask to name the institute.
Due to the virtual event, we have deliberately kept the framework smaller and dispensed with breakout rooms. The naming is only enforceable to a limited extent, but we will try to offer a better identification of the participants for the next online event.
Comment 6
I was surprised that the event was held in German, as many researchers working in Germany do not speak German
Future IF events will be held in English like the other de.NBI events.
Comment 7
Collect questions explicitly in the chat and have them asked by moderator.
There were only a few follow-up questions after the talks, so follow-up questions could be asked directly. As soon as the expected number of questions increases, we will gladly switch to a central collection of questions.
We thank all attendees ot the event for taking part at the Annual Meeting of the Industrial Forum 2020! Stay healthy and hopefully see you next time!