Conference News: Dreamforce Live; Conference Vax Rules; Speak at SIGGRAPH

Dreaming of Live Gatherings: As California continues to ease its Covid-19 restrictions, Salesforce has shared with the Silicon Valley Business Journal that it is planning to hold Dreamforce live. They are hoping to host the event from 21 – 24 September in San Francisco but recognize that they may need to get creative with their planning. Some of the options they are considering include setting up additional gathering/session venues across the city to decrease the number of attendees in one place or setting up places to share content outside.

Vaccination for Live Participation: Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI), the organization behind events such as Bio-IT World, Pharma R&D Week, an PEGS Summit, has a new Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy for all of for all in-person participants across all of their events. Moving forward, attendees will be asked to furnish proof of vaccination. CHI has built some flexibility into the new plan. They add, “attendees that cannot participate because of this policy, or due to travel restrictions, are encouraged to participate using our highly praised virtual event platform.” They also made their registration policy more flexible, allowing attendees to select an in-person or virtual option, with the ability to switch their preferred event experience at any time leading up to the conference. Will this be the new direction for post-pandemic conference participation? Read more about CHI’s plan here. 

Speaking Opportunity: For over 30 years SIGGRAPH Courses have been an important source of information for practitioners, developers, researchers, scientists, engineers, artists, and students who want to learn about state-of-the-art computer graphics and related topics. SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 (14 – 17 December in Tokyo) is now seeking speakers who want to give either a 1 hour 45 minutes or half-day long (3 hours 45 minutes) course. Submissions are due by 27 June and may cover a range of relevant topics including: Innovative ideas and novel paradigms; Big data, machine learning, vision, and other areas of computer science; Disciplines from art to design, science, technology and engineering; New skills sets; Applications such as gaming, manufacturing, medicine, cultural heritage, etc. Note that if a submission is accepted, it will be published in the SIGGRAPH Digital Library regardless of whether the physical event is able to take place.

Lunchtime Learning: Back in March, LinkedIn held a free-to-attend, one-day event for talent leaders facing the changing world of work. LinkedIn Forward focused on the future of work across three main topic areas: Diversity and inclusion; skills-based hiring and internal mobility; and flexible work. Although the program was brief, it featured LinkedIn’s CPO, along with senior talent executives from Unilever, Atlassian. Kaiser Permanente, and Uber. To extend the program’s accessibility beyond registered attendees, the full video is now available to all. Toward the beginning of the video, there is a rough agenda to help you locate the various topics across the stream – or tune in to the entire 90-minute program to learn more about critical topics shaping the world of work, such as DIBs strategy, skills-based hiring, and opening up new ways of collaboration.

Coming Up Next Week: Cybersecurity professionals will cyber-flock to RSA Conference/USA when it kicks off 17 May. The 2021 RSA agenda includes over 200 traditional sessions, tutorials, learning labs, birds of a feather, and the Sandbox: “a hands-on virtual space where you can test your cybersecurity skills.” At Bloomberg Business Week (17-21 May), programming runs 10am to 1pm ET daily, exploring the “how-to’s” of technology, culture, creativity, entertainment, global affairs, healthcare, and science. Globoforce WorkHuman Conference runs its virtual programming on Americas timing 18 May, where “humans of all kinds – HR practitioners and leaders, executives, academics, researchers, advocates, and industry thought leaders – can drop their armor and learn about what matters to the future of work and the world.” The rapidly-accelerating rate of change in healthcare delivery and policy is the focus at this year’s Modern Healthcare Transformation Summit (18-19 May). Senior executives from hospitals and health systems, suppliers, payers, and venture capitalists attend this summit. And finally, rounding out this week’s lineup of virtual events, we have Digital Hollywood Spring, running 18-20 May. DH Spring 2021 will explore topics ranging from The Art & Evaluation of NFT and Future of TV & Streaming, to Podcast Content, Development and Programming.