My experience as a volunteer at SPSAS
Academic events and conferences in general have always interested me a lot. Learning something different, hearing the experiences of those working with some new technology, getting to know more about trends in the market and academia, these are all fascinating things to me.
I went to several events while I was an undergrad student. This affinity of mine led me to take part in the academic administration of my course, in which I served as Director of Academic Events.
But that’s been a long time ago. During my master’s degree I decided to focus more on my project and classes, so I ended up distancing myself from these activities. Fortunately, I was able to get a taste once again of what it was like to take place in organizing an event when I was selected as a volunteer for the organization of the São Paulo School of Advanced Science on Learning from Data.
SPSAS was an event organized by IME, with support from FAPESP, and took place from July 29th to August 9th, 2019. The main topic, as its title implies, was Data Science and all the various areas related to it. From machine learning and deep learning to databases and high performance computing. There were several lectures and courses, addressing not only theoretical issues but also practical issues, such as the impact of data on genomics and astronomy.
As you can see in the picture above, the event was attended by leading international academics: Abu-Mostafa, Ling Liu, Atlas Wang, Alberto Paccanaro and Raymond T Ng, just to name a few. Not to mention the big names of Brazilian researchers from various states, such as Francisco Brasileiro, Cláudia Bauzer Medeiros, Pedro Leite da Silva Dias, among others. I am very grateful to USP for selecting me to participate in such a high level event.
I plan on writing about what I’ve learned over these two full weeks of content in the future. But that is not the focus of this post. For now, I want talk a little about my experience as a volunteer in organizing and attending this event.
First of all, I want to make it clear that much had already been organized by several professors and staff members of the institute. The full list of event organizers is here, but I can’t help but mention the great work of the teachers Jef, Luciano Araújo and Fátima Nunes throughout the event. I’d also like to thank deeply my supervisor and director of IME, professor Junior Barrera, for informing me about the SPSAS and encouraging me to enroll in the school.
The volunteer students who participated in the organization of the event, in turn, focused on different specific issues. Some were responsible for helping with the finance, such as organizing the refunds for the fellows, others helped with driving and transportation of foreign speakers and attendees. As for me, I applied for putting together the One Minute Lightning Talks.
First, I have to mention that Lightning Talk is a great understatement, so to speak. Elsewhere they call this kind of presentation Poster Blitz or Poster Madness. And in fact, organizing this part of the event was indeed very chaotic. But in the end all went well, since I was not alone in this task. More than that, I had the help of an amazing group. Without the hard work of the colleagues Hamed and Décio Soares, we certainly would not have achieved the success we had, praised by participants and professors alike. I leave here my heartfelt thanks to both of them for all the effort, hard work and commitment. Both are exceptional people, no doubt.
Also, I couldn’t help but mention it: keep an eye on Hamed’s project Leitnerapp, designed for learning new languages! It has a very interesting take on the matter, it is worth checking it out and contacting him if you are interested.
To put together the Lightning Talks sessions we had to cover different areas. Initially, we spent some time planning and researching how these one-minute academic presentations were held and how we could best conduct ours.
Then, moving to the practical part, we decided to work with a dedicated site for submitting participants’ presentations; we prepared some background material so they could understand the idea behind these sessions; we even gave a brief talk of what we expected from the participants’ presentations. That’s enough material for a post on its own, just so I can tell in details what I’ve learned in this process. But that’s not what I want to talk about here yet.
The event had over 600 entries, of which about 150 were selected to attend the event. Half of the participants were Brazilian (from different states) and the other half were people from various places around the world, coming to a total of 19 different countries. In this scenario, we knew we had to show all these people from abroad the attractions of São Paulo.
Antonio de Carvalho “DJ”, along with Suzana Santos, two fantastic people, very engaged and active in the IME community, were the main responsible for organizing the cultural tours during the weekend. And, of course, they had a great team as well: José Valdenir (Zé), Erika Guetti, Diogo Pell and Gustavo Estrela.
On Saturday they took the participants to USP’s Giro Cultural, a guided tour of USP’s museums. After that, they went to visit the Ibirapuera park. On Sunday the plan was to take the people to visit Paulista Avenue. I decided to join them on Sunday and set out to guide the foreigners who were staying at one of the hotels near USP to Paulista (the train system and SP subway can be a bit confusing for outsiders). Once we got there, we spent the whole afternoon with them. In spite of the freezing cold temperatures (10ºC), it was very much worth it.
The group, although small, was diverse and very fun. We had people from Belo Horizonte and São Carlos, but we also had visitors from Peru, Bangladesh, France, Iran, and India. The chatting and interactions, visiting SESC, Casa das Rosas and eating Brazil’s famous pastel were enough to keep my heart warm on that chilly winter day. Did I mention I was freezing? I caught a cold that day.
By the end of the tour we split. There were those who preferred going to a bar; those who chose to go grab dinner; others wanted to return home; finally, we also had the geek group, who preferred to attend one more museum even after spending the whole afternoon walking around Paulista. Yes, as show by the picture above, I was the nerdy one who suggested going to the museum late at night. But, as you can see, I had great company: Luis Soncco, Yohann Chasseray, Khalid Mahmood and Josimar Chire! We went to FILE at SESI, an exhibition that brings together art and technology in very interesting ways, full of interactive pieces of art.
In addition to the Lightning Talks and walking with the foreigners at Paulista, I was also in charge of scanning the participants’ QR codes during the beginning of each presentation at the auditorium. But once again, I was not alone. I counted on the help of Erika and Zé (who are both really fun people, I should mention). Because of that, I could exchange a few words with some participants, foreigners and Brazilians alike.
During my activities I met Renan Vinicius. He was also a student at EACH, but I didn’t get to know him during the four years I spent there. So it was a happy coincidence meeting him there. He’s a great person, always humorous and helpful, and was in charge of helping the event by taking professional photos. Have a look.
Speaking of photos, I had a great surprise when Udbhav “Yudi” Singhal decided to take the following picture with me.
We were talking about differences in Indian and Brazilian cuisine when he mentioned that Indian sweets were too sweet for most people outside India. I mentioned that I would do well in India then, since I love me some sweet stuff (and spicy food as well). The next day, he brings me a pack of cookies he brought from India, saying that he had already offered them to several people and none really ended up liking it, exactly because they found it too sweet.
Once I got home I tried these cookies and they were delicious. I needed to return this simple gesture that marked me by its spontaneity. So the next day I brought him some Brazilian sweets as well, called brigadeiros. He was so happy with the surprise that he made sure to ask Renan for a picture. Giving his words of gratitude back to him: 🙏 namaste!
During the second week of the event, we had a fancy dinner at a churrascaria, with a special discount given by the school. Everyone had a blast, even Yudi, who’s vegetarian!
William Suzuki is also another incredible person I had the pleasure to meet during the event. Extroverted and cheerful, he was always making sure everyone felt included in the conversations, never leaving anyone behind. Always polite and high spirited, I had the opportunity to talk to him during some of the event’s coffee breaks.
Going back home, I shared an Uber with Diego Andrés since we found out that day that we actually leave somewhat nerby. We had some great exchanges in the car, Diego is a very nice person as well. Unfortunately couldn’t talk much to Martin Palazzo or Alejandro de Jongh, but both seemed like great people too, with very interesting research backgrounds.
This picture was taken on the last day of the event. Here I’m joined by Rafael Testa, another student from my undergrad that I hadn’t met during my years at EACH, and Muhammad Ayaz, a kind professor from Saudi Arabia who loved our cultural trips to Ibirapuera and the Paulista.
Speaking of cultural trips, by the end of the event the group that helped organizing these cultural activities (also known as the DigiDestined group or Fantinha [kinda long inside joke]) decided to meet again, now to celebrate the success of the activities! With a lot of vegan pizza, laughter and absurd but real stories (according to experts).
Well, if you have read this far, you must’ve already realized that the point of this post is not to talk about the high quality lectures and workshops from SPSAS; it’s not about the daunting task of organizing Lightning Talks; it doesn’t even have any guide or relevant technical information at all. The main point of this post, if it isn’t clear yet, are the people.
During these two weeks I was able to meet people from different corners of Brazil and the world. I wish I had more time to interact with them and my shy nature doesn’t help me much either. But still, I had the opportunity to meet amazing people, who’s had great achievements, and are out there doing amazing things to this day.
Participating and helping organize SPSAS brought me this unique opportunity. I could feel how much this kind of event is important not only from a theoretical and academic point of view but also for connecting people. During my years organizing events in undergrad I already had this notion. But now I realized that the importance of connection was actually just a vague idea I had.
I wish I had realized this sooner. Or rather, I wish someone had given me that advice sooner but through some vivid account, something that inspired me to participate and even help in organizing this kind of event. So I write this text thinking about my past self and all the other people who are in a place similar to where I was. “Networking” is not a word that can truly describe all of this. You just gotta be there.
So that’s been my experience and this is my advice. Go to events that interest you (you can go for free to several ones nowadays), get all the information, take notes and make questions. But don’t forget that, just as important as gaining any technical knowledge, you should also enjoy the connections you can make with all the amazing people around you.
Last modified at Aug 16, 2019.