 Okay. Perfect. So, good afternoon, everyone. Here we go. Perfect. Good afternoon, everyone, for the next, until 3 p.m. Because, of course, we started late, but until 3 p.m., we are going to talk about, in this open mic session, we are going to talk about scientific collaborations and beyond science and culture. This is not a talk, a specific talk where I have to say something specific or so important about that topic, but much more like an introduction to start the communication between us and where we can open this forum and exchange ideas about how we can collaborate much more efficiently beyond cultures and beyond countries. So, generally, the first question I always ask is, are we culturally so different? I think that 100 years ago, definitely it was the case. But today, for example, when I put a picture like this, which I did in my talk yesterday, I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of the people in the room know exactly who these people are. And if you ever step foot in the United States, you realize that the Simpsons, they are really an American family. Really, they are an American family. I'm not saying that all Americans are like the Simpsons, but they're a way of life, the way the house looks like. When you step into an American house, for example, wooden houses, which for me was a big surprise because in Africa, only poor people have houses in wood. But in the United States, 80% of the houses, bad houses, best houses, they are generally wooden houses. When you enter into an American house, it looks like this. Most of the time, sorry, they're jolts, they're what is going on in their life, they're school bus. It's very, very an American thing. But somehow, whenever you put this picture everywhere, actually, people will comment who these people are. I remember I had a cousin, this was like 10 or 15 years ago, because where I live, actually, every summer, our parents send us to the village so that we can be with the grandparents. And back then, there were not a lot of places in our village where you could watch TV. So he will walk, my cousin will walk kilometers every Saturday or Sunday to see the episodes of the Simpsons. To tell you how important that was for him. And when I, for example, put something like this, which I did yesterday, everybody understands the joke. So for us, it's something normal to know about Simpsons and all the Simpsons jokes and everything. But when we think about it, actually, it is not that much because this is something that is profoundly rooted in one culture. So somehow today, because of this world where we are interconnected, we are sometimes much more close in culture than what we think. Sometimes we think that because we come from different cultures, we don't necessarily communicate, but we have vectors of culture like, for example, the Simpsons that somehow bind us. So there are some differences that are obvious. Race, which is a very obvious difference. You have multiracial countries, countries that are not multiracial, but relationships between race are not so evident and not so obvious. You have national and ethical origin. This just roots in history. You have countries where people have a tendency to get along very well and countries where they kind of don't like their neighbors. And it's been like that for hundreds of years and it's still like that today. Even though I do think that we are living one of the most peaceful times of mankind history. Gender. How do we deal with gender issues? How do females deal with men? How do men deal with females? This is not the same thing if you are in Cameroon, in France, in the US, in India, in China, in Zimbabwe. It's not the same thing. There are some differences sometimes that are big, sometimes that are small, subtle. And most of the time we are not even aware of it. Why? Because we just are. It's like, you know, I always say it's difficult to convince a fish that he's wet. If you are somewhere in some culture, then you behave a certain way and you don't necessarily understand that other people behave in a radically different way. Wealth. Generally in rich countries they have a set of rules that they respect. And in countries where wealth is not so abundant, generally they have other sets of rules. Language. Very important. We know today that English is, sorry, the lingua franca of research. If you want to do research you need to have a sufficient command of English. That's just what it is. So we have our fellows that are native English speakers to have that advantage that they already master English, which is good. Those who are not native English speakers really have to make the effort to go to that. And some people are very willing to make the efforts and others not so much. Religion. You have, once again, differences of religion. Sometimes within the country, sometimes across borders. How do we deal with that? There are areas where it's very difficult to evolve when you don't have the dominant religion and areas where actually people are much more tolerant. Sexual orientation. If, for example, you are gay or transgender, the way you will be treated will not be the same in the United States or in France or in my home country, Cameroon, for example, where it is illegal to be homosexual. So generally whenever you take all of these issues, we generally think that we are tolerant and we can accept differences without much difficulty. Here in the room I don't think, how many nationalities do we have here? More than 20. More than 20. So, and I think that so far we did get along very well. We don't have problems. We venture out well with each other. It's not a big problem. Sometimes we see some people doing this thing that way and we're like, okay, fine. If we want to do it that way, you know, I don't have a problem with that. So most of the time the differences that we see do not disturb us. And what we think is that these variations of this difference of culture are a richness for mankind. And when these differences disturb us, because sometimes in other cultures we see stuff and we're just like, okay, I will not say anything but I don't like it. But sometimes when these differences disturb us then we think that we're intelligent and smart enough to just disregard it and just, you know, move on with our own way of doing things. But generally I do think that we underestimate the importance of culture. I still stress that I believe that intercultural relationships are way better than they have ever been in the history of mankind. But still sometimes I think that we tend to underestimate the importance of culture. And this is my personal equations. I always say that every human being is in path integral between his birth day and now, his birth place and here. You integrate around the environment in space and time. That is you. So in that environment, especially temporal function, you have what I call a random effect, which is the family. If you're born in a family of people that are very open-minded, generally you will be open-minded. If you're born in a family that is rich, where on every vacation you just go to Trieste to spend your vacations, it's not the same thing as, you know, you're born in a family that is poor and when on vacations you have, for example, to work for, to pay the tuition for the next year. So this is something that is random. You don't have a, you cannot master that. And this is the same thing for all of us. We're just born in a family and that's it. And this effect I think is deterministic. This is not noise. It's culture. Very probably if you're born in Saudi Arabia, you will be Muslim. Very probably. Very probably if you're born in a predominantly Christian country, you will be Christian. If you are born in India, you will much more belong to one of the Indian religions. If you're born in France, much probably you will speak French and think that the French system is the best system. And if you're born in America, you will think that America is the greatest thing on earth. Just what it is. This part, the culture, the fact that the mean field around you thinks a certain way, speaks a certain way, understands the world a certain way. This polarizes you even if your family within that culture is rich or poor or this or that. Generally this exactly defines how we dress, how we speak, how we interact with people. This is the most important thing generally. And we underestimate it. We think that we are, you know, individuals that are free of, free thinkers and we have ideas because we are intelligent enough to figure it out ourselves. So culture is very inbuilt, very deeply. This is truly something that I think. And some manifestations of inbuilt social differences are well known. Management of social hierarchy problems. How do we deal with people that are above us? When you are a PhD student and you have an advisor and you disagree, for example, how do you manage that? And I would say Western countries in my experience, you know, the PhD can just come to his advisor and say, you know, I think that this thing goes in a way that I don't like, you know, I'm not satisfied with this and that and generally you can openly discuss that. In other countries, it's not necessarily so. You have countries that have very stiff social hierarchy, most African countries, for example, if I wanted to talk about something that I know, the social hierarchy is very stiff and you will not be able to talk with your supervisor or anyone that is socially higher than you as friendly as you will do, for example, in a Western country. Management of gender issues. It's not the same thing depending on the country, where you are and the culture. The way you even talk to females is not the same. I remember, for example, something I like to do is I like when I organize conferences in Africa to bring some Western colleagues and most of them, most of the time, is the first time they come to Africa. And of course what they see when they are there is very, very different than what they think. And I remember one day, one of my colleagues, I went there with them and I organized a conference and after that I was told the country and it was like, I'm very surprised the way you talk to females. I'm like, what is that? It's like, you're always so respectful. Not me, but it was like the people and actually thought bad about it and it's true. Like in Africa, you cannot be rude to a female that you don't know. It's not accepted that you talk to a female and you are rude. But because they were coming from abroad, they had the idea that we're polygons and females are not important and they arrived and they see a country where actually we are very, very careful about how we address the opposite sex and vice versa. So gender issues are very, which doesn't mean that there are no problems, there are. And of course I'm sure that a lot of people from southern countries, they arrive in the west and they see that the proportion of females that are in a position of power is higher than in their country. That I don't know, 25% of females will be director of the institute or a big professor and maybe they're not very used to that when they come from a southern country. So we are not necessarily the same, by the way, we manage gender issues. We are very culturally driven. Management of success, failure. Some people say that one of the big advantage of, for example, the American society is that it is a society that manages well failure. They say, hey, you know, try it. It doesn't work, no problem, you try again. With other societies, people don't want to try because when they fail, people finger point them, oh, you couldn't make it. For example, this is, and I could see that. I could see how it's different in Africa and in Europe and in the United States. The way that young master degree or PhD student do things. Clearly you talk to Americans, they try different things. When it works, they capitalize. When it doesn't work, they still capitalize because, you know, I've done something that didn't work. I think there's a famous quote by Edison. I think he invented the bulb after 100 trials and he said, I discovered 99 ways not to find a bulb or something like that. Which is really an American vision of success and failure, which is not prevalent, believe me. Elsewhere in the world, generally people are shy to try because when they fail, the society finger points them. Management of interaction with unknown colleagues, which is very important when you arrive here, most of the people that are here, you don't know them. So how do you interact? There are societies where it's very easy to say, hey, how do you do? My name is this, et cetera. And societies that are much more like, you know, it's difficult to talk to people that you don't know. Management of social interaction with people you know. This also is not an easy thing. Management of resolution of personal conflicts. When you disagree with someone, how do you manage that? Once again, this is something that is done differently depending on the culture. So I always encourage young scientists to be aware of these differences in culture because this is the most important thing they will have to face in their career, if they want to have what I call a successful career. You will not have a successful career if you stay in your country and do not interact with people outside. Even if you are the most clever guy, you will be successful when, sorry, you will be able to interact with people from your country, which is easy. You speak the same language, you have the same culture, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. But you will need somehow to be able to interact with people that are not like you. Not the same gender, not the same sex, not the same political views, not the same anything. You still need to be able to interact with these people efficiently. One point is you need to fine tune the public representation of yourself. Be aware that when you walk people look at you, people analyze you. They don't know you. So the only thing that the first idea that they have with you is the way you are. You need to be aware of that. I will take a very simple example. As Africans, we speak loud. That's just how we are. We speak loud. You go in African streets, everyone is like, ah, ah, ah, and they speak very, very loud. I'm there and I realize that, for example, when I'm with my African friends, like in France, for example, and when we speak, even, I don't know, we're, I don't know. Just in the street, we really do speak loud. I'm not aware of that. And it took me some time to realize that. But for other people, it is rude. Because generally in Europe, people, when they speak, they're like, you know, bonjour, comment ça va, etc. I don't know, bonjour, comment ça va. It's another, and it's just the way we speak. We just speak loud. And of course, if you come here in Europe for, you know, one week and you go back to Africa, it's not a problem. But if you have to come in every conference, and in every conference when you're in the building, people know you're there, even though you're not doing anything wrong, if you're not aware that this thing is not universal, then maybe people will be like, yeah, this guy is a nice guy, but man, he speaks too loud. So be aware of that. This, I'm taking just this example. But there are a lot of examples. Different things that are very inbuilt with us, we don't necessarily realize, find you in the public representation of yourself. Be aware that the people will judge you, because even though we say we don't judge people, we judge people by their appearance when we don't know them. After that, when you know the people, you can find you, but at the beginning, you don't know people, so you judge what you see, okay? So like, you know, the way you dress, the way you talk to people, you have to be very careful about that, because that's how people will judge you first. Like, for example, there is, I saw one day someone on television that was talking about the social distances. In America, for example, the social distance is large. If you come to less than 20 centimeters close to an American, it will feel very uncomfortable. Very. But for example, for Asians, it can be very close. For Africans, I would say it's intermediate. But for Americans, for example, they don't like when you touch them. And it's just cultural. Hey, how do you touch them? It's the kind of cringe. In France, for example, you see someone, hey, how do you do? It's very like, you know, in the US, no. It's some kind of, they have a social distance that is, and when you arrive there, you need to understand that. So when you arrive in a place that is not your culture, you need to be very aware of what are the cultural codes and be sure that you blend in. And don't come with your own way of doing things and think that everybody will have to accept that. I always insist on that it's always very, very important because in your career, you will have to travel a lot. And, you know, be always very, very, very aware of the fact that very little things like that, you touching people, or you speaking loud, or you laughing loud, little things like that that you can think are not harmful actually can have a great impact about how people view you. Cross-cultural awareness permits strong and reliable connection with other scientists. Generally what you want in your career is to be able to know people from different continents and have very good relationships with them. This will not occur if you are culturally arrogant. You might want it or not, but sometimes if you're not culturally aware that, you know, these other scientific colleagues are different, I need to be very careful about the way I interact with them. If you're not aware of that, your inter-cultural relationships might not be very, very successful. It prepares you to compete efficiently for funds, for fellowships, for grants, etc. Generally, as you will evolve in your career, you will compete for, I don't know, international fellowship. This is an international fellowship. It's funded by, maybe we should acknowledge the funders that are NSF. No, not NSF. ICTP. ICTP, of course. APS, American Physical Society, IOP Institute of Physics, which is then in England and Britain, and the European Physical Society. And EPS. Yes, EPS. So you are here, most of you are here, owing to a funding that does not come from your country. So I suppose that, sorry, you had to do an application, etc., etc., etc. And this is already a first step in your career when you have to come out of your culture and compete because it was a competition. I know, personally, people wanted to come here. Yes, there were more than 300 applicants. So, and we had something like a little less than 50. So it was like 20, less than 20% success rate? Yes. Okay. So somehow that you did right, or do in your application, made the people who were doing this election say, okay, we want this person here and others not. So be aware of that, that generally when you will compete internationally, you need to understand how, at the international level, things work. It's very important. And it also allows you to enhance your communication skills with everyone, okay? When you just understand how you can interact with people from different culture, it enables you to build stronger relationship with them. I think this is obvious. So I have a quantum formulation of the problem. Generally, collaboration is going to be good and bad. It's some kind of like quantum superposition of both. And what you want, actually, is just to have a reduction to this eigenstate. And now the problem, because I'm sure that every scientist, of course, want to get along with all the other ones, the question is how do you get to this? And I write here. So open questions. And of course, there are other questions, so I will invite you to share your views and your ideas about this topic. From a general perspective, how do you think cross-cultural collaborations in science could be improved? In your opinion, how could young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills? How could NOSA programs like the Hands-on School could be improved to meet their goals much more efficiently? Because of course the people who set up the school they have an idea. But they need your feedback to fine-tune things and make it better. Me, for example, is the third time that I come to the Hands-on, and I can see every time I come that there are new things that are added to make the program better and meet better your expectations. What are optimal strategies to develop south side collaborations? Much more importantly, are there key ideas related to this open forum that you think should be discussed or considered? Of course, this is not an exclusive set of questions. If you have other questions, and not necessarily questions, if you have ideas that you want to share or experiences that you want to share, please feel free, this is an open forum. Thank you. Floor is open for comments. Please state your name and then make your comment. I'm Shmaila, and I just have one question regarding this second comment we made, open question. Which comment, sorry? The open question. In your opinion, how young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills? I have... My question is not about collaboration skills. My question is when, for example, there are different writing styles. The writings are different. In Asia, the writing style is mostly very long. In Europe, it's very concise. In America, it is different. So when you go into the international pool to apply for a funding, these things matter a lot. So how we can... How we are able to compete there? How we are able to... How we are able to manage that? How we are able to adjust that difference? Good. That's a good point. I would just share my personal experience about that. I remember I applied for a fellowship once to go to NASA. It was a NASA fellowship. And the first time I applied, I didn't get it. And I was very curious to ask my supervisor, my prospective supervisor why it didn't work. And it was... No one had bold enough. Your project was too conservative. We were sure that you could make it. So that's not what we wanted here. We wanted something much more risky. Which was different from what I was used to in Europe where if you say something that is too risky, then they are like, this is science fiction. We don't want to fund it. We want to fund something realistic. And I wrote a second project that was very risky that to be honest with you at the beginning I was not sure that I could make. And I got the fellowship and I went there and finally I could say what I was writing, what I wrote. So I would say depending on which country, what kind of fellowship you're talking about, depending on the country, depending on the program it's very important to adapt to what really you want to do. I would say it's the keyword to adapt. If you compete for American funds I think it's important to know exactly what kind of proposals generally they want to see. Maybe read one, two, three proposals that have been successful before. See a little bit the style, the level of competition, the level of risk because there's always risk in science. If you do science that is not risky at all, it's not research. It's just development. If you want to do research it means that it's not known and risk. But different cultures accept different parts. For example in Africa if you want to do something very risky you will not get funded because we are poor countries we still have to build roads, schools, hospitals. Yes we can give money to research but if it's to do something that is very likely to fail we don't have money for that. While much more advanced countries are much more willing to explore new ideas like in the example that I told you we want projects that are much more risky. So I will say adjust to the call the specific call that you're talking about and it's definitely a homework that you have to do. I just want to make a comment about what you said about looking at other successful proposals. I'm not sure how universal this is but in the US the National Science Foundation puts the one page summary of every successful program up on its web page so if you're answering a call for a specific proposal you can see how people wrote previous successful proposals. If such a thing is not available for the program you are applying to maybe you can find somebody else that you know within your social network who has been successful and ask them to see a copy of the proposal. I'll just add that the point that you made where you went and found out why you didn't get it that's very critical if you don't get something ask the person who decided why and don't be afraid to talk to these people they don't want to get bad proposals they don't want to get proposals they don't fund they want to be able to tell you what's going on and you should be willing to ask them. That is truly very very important sometimes people don't give you feedback which I don't like but most of the time people are willing to give you feedback and ask why I would have applied the second year trying to improve my initial project but not stealing the lines that they wanted so this is very important asking for feedback That's clear I wanted to address the same thing I also failed some scholarship and what not and I always asked why and usually it was some European findings and usually the answer was we don't give that information Come on That is true, I agree with you a lot of programs generally don't give feedback which I think is a bad thing but I actually think that feedback is important even when you are successful because sometimes it's useful for you to know why actually they like your project you want to know if it's because you wrote well you want to know if because the topic is important to them and it's true that a lot of funding agencies because they are bureaucratic very big things they don't like to address individual requests so if they have not already foreseen that they want to give feedback generally they just don't give it to you which is a problem I totally agree with you but try all the time if you can try to ask for feedback I wouldn't mind even like the most trivial feedback just what the referee say just what the referee say don't smell nice then okay next time no just some but yeah let me just add something about this too so what we are talking about here we sort of concentrated on funding but really this sort of thing happens everywhere when you have it really boils down to communication and something I think we were talking about in our professional development workshop and it was mentioned in Professor Swinney's talk you got to know your audience your audience is some funding agency in China or in the US or UK even within the US talking about funding different agencies have very different philosophies you have to know what your audience is it doesn't have to be about funding you are trying to submit to journals the journals they have their own particular approach take so really it's all you are at a conference you are communicating you have to know your audience that really is the key thing and to the extent that you can get information about that sometimes it's not so readily available often times it is and you try to incorporate that and this idea about if you fail that is an opportunity failing is actually good for you because it is an opportunity for you to grow to become a better you you learn something about yourself about what you can do better so don't look at it as I have to stop it as a new beginning I totally agree with that and as I say you see American point of view failure is good for you sir my name is Pauline I'm just curious what is the criteria to be selected in ICTP workshop applause asking for feedback so let me give you some what we look for that distinguished your application your workshops have their own way of judging I'll tell you what we look for what we look for was when you gave the reasons why you wanted to attend you actually said something specific about this workshop what we see some fraction of the people who apply are serial suppliers they basically just send in something that is very generic for a reason it didn't really connect very well with what the underlying ideas or themes of the workshop were but I would say everyone here made that effort and we recognize that and that's important ok so that's one thing we were not so much we looked at your background and looked at your prior work but actually that for us was less important because we wanted to bring people who were early in their career so they may not have a long most of you have a track some of you have a pretty extensive track record but most of you haven't had such really we were looking for we actually rejected a number of people who were very senior we have lots of publications but they've had their opportunity they're clearly established we wanted to go for people who were early enthusiastic we clearly saw this specifically as something that was important to advancing their career your career and that's what we looked for but again that's what we look for different audiences namely the different activity directors will look for something different but I'll just say that's what we had in mind I can't speak for the other activities I'll speak for what we the hands on schools you applied the lesson that you learned today as for feedback good question I'm Alejandro from Venezuela recommendation letters have the same value in different countries when you make an application I don't know in my experience yes there are some countries where it depends on the program sometimes you have 1,000 applications and everyone has more or less the same level for example for a PhD fellowship you are flooded with transcripts you don't have the time really to so you prefer to read the recommendation letters where people say you know what I know this person and generally the recommendation letter depends who writes it and how less general it is because sometimes people just write oh yes he's a good student I recommend him for you it's not helping you of course you will not write the recommendation letter but we want general in the recommendation letter to say something specific about you you can say you know what he may be not very good theoretically but he's very motivated he works very hard this for example is a genuine honest comment that I will keep in mind rather than someone just saying oh he's very bright he's just the best student that's my very personal experience so if when someone write recommendations later for you try to ask them to be specific be sure that you ask someone who really wants to write a recommendation letter for you because sometimes people just don't want this occurred even to me someone comes and you are like honestly you know that a good student I don't want to recommend you and generally the students take it bad well actually I'm helping them because if I feel forced to write a letter partially if I want to recommend him to someone that I know I cannot say that you're the brightest student when I know that he will value my opinion maybe give you the position and after that feel like I betrayed him so when you feel like someone doesn't want to write a letter for you don't force be sure that the person that writes the letter truly wants to do it let me just add one more thing and then I'll pass it on to the other hands on specifically again for this activity we actually solicited input from people who participated in this activity in the past and we actually know from the past participants there were some who were really outstanding and those in particular who we were were very impressive we listened to them very carefully and so some of you are here because in fact you receive strong recommendations from people who were here at this school in the past so you have the opportunity to have that influence in the future we're going to ask you when we have future schools to recommend people, colleagues and if you're very strong here we're going to listen to you very carefully because you're building your scientific reputation here right now in how you interact how you participate how much enthusiasm how it's your commitment all those sorts of things are really important and you're making the impression now so it's not just that you are you're applying you actually have influence now in other people's careers in that way so have that in mind I just wanted to add another thing about the recommendation letters the way the system works in the West the recommendation letter should be something confidential and it is the duty of the professors to write those letters if they know you if they say no then absolutely it means they don't have a good opinion they don't want to hurt you so you don't push that if they just look busy or they ask you to write the letter for them this is wrong you should really say no please I supply you with an email with information with my CV and please write the letter yourself it should be confidential and it should not be written by the candidate this undermines the system otherwise and like Mike was saying the faculty actually develop a reputation and after a while people know each other and know what a letter from a certain person means that's the way the system works so I wanted to add something that John was searching and that Pietro mentioned just in passing but if you want somebody to write an individualized letter for you it helps if you can give them make it easy for them and Pietro said it very quickly but if you're asking somebody for a recommendation letter email them a copy of your curriculum vita so that they know more about you or it just may remind them of things they knew about you but forgot so he's saying don't write the letter for them but give them enough information that helps them write a more personalized letter definitely I totally agree with that thank you my name is Shea Ma and I actually want to comment on the second question here how could young researchers from developing countries develop their collaboration skills actually this kind of activities melt the boundaries between cultures and even scientific fields so what I really want to say here if we or the ICTB can have something like a student chapter student chapters distributed in the world so that they act like notes related or linked to the ICTB I know that the ICTB is supporting conferences in many where especially developing countries but if there is a student chapter somewhere then this student chapter in any university usually captures the intention of undergrad and master students then can know something earlier about societies like ICTB OSA and these kind of scientific communities or societies and I found it really very helpful to find someone in my university who has or has like previous experience in the ICTB usually know from them about the schools and conferences where to apply it's the same kind of experience we look for when we try to apply somewhere so you I mean similar to to find how to apply and adapt your application seeing CV proposal and proposal and these kind of stuff so if we can have like a student chapter in the university ICTB student chapter you mean an ICTB student chapter yeah an ICTB student chapter in the country whatever the university is then they have something like an opportunity to invite one of the lecturers from the ICTB for one of their activities and then the students especially undergrad students will get know to this kind of collaborative skills thank you I will just say I will totally agree that now it's true that there's no ICTB official here but personally when I was much younger I would have appreciated that but she said something very important about student chapters generally whatever you do chemistry optics mechanics robotics whatever there is an international society that is established and generally they do have student chapters so I encourage you to be affiliated to one of the student chapters of the main domain that you the main society that belongs to your area and if there is not please say that you want to create one me for example I've been mandated by IEEE to create student chapters of photonics in Africa so we're actually looking for people that might talk with you if you want to create an IEEE chapter photonics in Egypt they look for young people and they have fellowships specific for them so out of the money they have they reserve some money for young people from developing countries and actually I can tell you they don't find applicants and it's just because there is a gap of information so the young people in developing countries don't know the opportunity exists and the societies they don't know how to reach people in developing countries so make that effort to belong to a student chapter or to create one if you can thank you for your talk my name is Muhammad I think it would be more better if there is some group projects in the hands on the school for example we're going to the sessions with already codes already setups and we just do just tiny part of the work but I think it would be better if there is some groups with different cultures different nations and we have to do the projects together for example somebody develop the code somebody develop the setup I think it would very beneficial for this school to communicate and I think it's better so I will mention that before Elisha we'll get to your comment I will mention that in fact this school is starting such a group collaborative project so for the first time there are three different sessions that actually separate from the morning sessions that we're just started as a pilot project as a collaboration between groups from different countries the session leaders and the assistants and we're trying to figure out exactly what that mechanism is how to make it sustainable how to have it be something that's not just for a day or a couple of days or two weeks but beyond the life of the school you can take it back to your home institution so some of the things you're learning here even with these small introductions everything is already canned in some sense these sort of introductions and new techniques those are things you can take back but we also appreciate that when you get home you have your advisors telling you that you need to do something everyone has demands on their time figuring out how to take something that you learn new and you're excited about and then when you return home you tell others about it but actually to sustain that that's really a big challenge so we are looking for we're trying new ideas it's a notion of group projects to something we're trying here we're going to see how it works and try to expand it in future schools but we appreciate your comment because it really is something that we want to have support you right now or for the next two weeks but something you can take home and carry with you beyond the rest of your careers thank you again I think it should can be done by for example we have a prize for posters but we can also define a prize for example for a good group project it's not mandatory it's already people can do this by it's own choice but it has a very good prize I think it's the motivation that people can communicate and collaborate and make something new I think it would be better for a hands-on school thank you for the suggestion thank you so much my name is Elisha one of the things I want to mention has already been covered by you because you said there will be collaborations and I would like the hands-on school to have something like a mentor mentee program for students so that a student can link up with one of the directors or the lecturers so that probably when you do your research in the future if you have papers you want to send out you can send it to your mentor he will look at it criticize it and send it back to you I think that will enhance a kind of longer span collaboration and I really want to appreciate the organizers of this school you guys are doing excellently I'm impressed apart from the fact that most of us are fully funded or partly funded it's great and when I go back to my country in Nigeria I will make sure to tell that it's possible to turn in application for this school thank you so much because when someone is doing something and you are not really sure if you are having an impact you may be discouraged but I want you to forge on you are on the right path thank you so you bring up a very important point about mentors this is really important in fact it's part of this project it's actually past participants so we've had something like 400 people who have passed through over the past 8 schools and some of those folks, as Prerna who is now a graduate is now a session leader and there are different past participants who are at different stages in their careers so what we are actually trying to do is to link up and so those of you who know you are in projects everyone has a mentor so the people here who are in this longer term projects are working on a longer term effort in collaboration in groups but there are people who are not here who are their mentors who are at their home institutions many of whom were past participants here so in fact your ideas it's very very important to build that network and in fact that's one of the things that we are trying to do we have the 50 folks here but you are not alone actually the people who have come before they are going to be the people who have come after you and what we are trying to build up is this community and in that community will be new people people who have been in a while and to build that network and to draw from that as the source of having mentors so you are in the early stages but as you progress you will be the mentor of someone at some point so just have that in mind so yes please spread the word but also if you go home and you've learned things you can directly try to take bits of what's happened here and actually apply them whether it's in a small group of your colleagues or in the department at whatever scale you want and you may find former people already there so one thing that we discuss a lot is whether from the point of view of building this network and community what online tools we can have at the moment we only have a very basic website and we probably don't want to use Facebook and we're still kind of looking for a way which would be more easy to say share documents somebody writes a draft, puts it up there others could comment and give feedback it would be great if we found the right low maintenance because everybody is short of time low maintenance and an easy way to maintain this community also online there is one quick thing I would like to say you know when I was a PhD student I was going to conferences and met people and today all of us are turning 40s and there are faculty that I know everywhere in the world I know people in Asia, in America, in Europe in Africa, most of them I met them one day in a conference and we just became I cannot even say friends because that's a big word but I knew them and all of us kind of evolved in our career right now you're coming from 20 countries of course you cannot keep track with everyone but if only you make, I don't know 3, 4, 5 friends, people that you know when you exchange emails and you keep in touch that's how you grow your network and it is very, very important you need to know that you need a network if your network is international, it's better if you know people in different continents, different countries it's important but these people when you meet them it's at conferences like this so the contacts that you are having right now if you see, you discuss with people and you have, sorry, affinities be sure that, you know, 10 years from now this will be something important you'll be, hey, you know what, I know someone I know a professor in India and I know a professor in the US I know a professor from Moldavia I know a professor from Nigeria and actually it will be a 10 year relationship and these are the relationships that are strong at our age, you meet people it's difficult to have very, very strong relationships because we're already adults and we have already our network you are building your academic network now the people with whom I have the closest relationships is because 10, 15 years ago all of us were PhD students and we were struggling to have our degree and now we have positions and we have the strongest relationship so value the fact that all of you are more or less at the same stage of your career and make contacts and I would, yeah, please very simple thing I would like to ask about any upcoming hands-on school it would be very useful to these students if you have that kind of professional workshop development sessions it would be helpful to tell us before we come here to bring every piece of useful material to our work because especially for the snapshot session we had I realized that I had many, many materials that I can use for this two minutes presentation which will come back to the time I need which are not with me just because I found it terribly to bring my material back from my email and this so I appreciate that but let me also say from the administration standpoint when we have 50 some odd of you are beat on by us to make sure where's your poster where's your poster if we're trying to keep track of your poster and your snapshots different people at different levels now you might say at some level issue it becomes we're one person or a few people so it's an issue of time so our hope was that when you presented your poster it contains all of the ideas which include there's the abstract so that forms the basis of your writing and the poster the materials there there's ample should be ample material from there to present a snapshot it's less about having the particulars I know you're thinking about having the details and have to have this graph or that graph not for a snapshot it's the key ideas the main points so just to say there's a balance we appreciate that you'd be nice to let you know all the details about everything upfront but at some point it's just a practical matter yes actually I had a comment saying something like if you can just put a diagram describing this and I just realized that I didn't put it I put all the details I thought that are enough but when you have some guidance saying if you just put this and you realize that you have it but you don't have it on your hand this is the point so I don't want to put everything I just want to be bitter fair enough so regarding networking I'm not sure Mike you may have to help me with this so we have a Facebook page that has been active at least so yes so no no for the 2013 one though there's still activity going on I mean like I know professor Erin Rarika she was what do you say posting messages and Eric Weeks was people who are in contact and we guys still occasionally say anyone publishes a paper there would be a link to it on archive or something so there's some sort of activity in terms of like call it social networking or academic networking it's going on so if anyone wants to take a lead and create a Facebook page for this hands on it would be really nice because you guys know each other really well you are part of post decisions you are part of hands on experiment so you meet almost every participant before you leave this conference right so it's not a bad idea to someone to take the lead and let me also add if you make such a group we would love to have that link that we would send it to future participants so they could look at your page the recommendations on how to prepare for the professional development workshops so that would that way we have more people involved it's not about us preparing everything and you know receiving if you become part of this families community and if you have an idea which is a great idea let's think out think of a way in which more people can get involved so that becomes that this becomes something that we can then provide for future participants but not one person is you know we're all doing this right we're building strengthening the community with all these ideas so it will be a useful platform for the participants so it's up to you whoever wants to take the lead so it will be a useful platform for the participants so it's up to you whoever wants to take the lead so groups and then better or more want to be available then I think if you are going to have a group well okay sure so we do we actually leave everything active the google drive and access your access stay you have access you know forever so but I would encourage those of you who want to let's say any sort of idea like this like increased communication community building if you get together talk among yourselves get together make some decisions you know I hear maybe google or gmail is not the best format but so come up with some solutions and we'd love to work with you on that that would be great to incorporate that and build that out strengthen the community I would like to say to make a comment that is a little bit off but I've stumbled to that problem a lot of times and I would like you to be aware of it be very careful about the way you write emails the people you don't know in academia I receive a lot of emails from you know young people and I'm sure that they don't mean any arm but when I receive an email from someone I don't know when I see sent from my iPhone it is just negative it's it's it's and of course it's not like I know that the people don't mean any arm but you should never forget that an email is a male an email is an electronic male it is a male partially when you write to someone you don't know it has to be formal be polite salutations the punctuation sentences starting with caps it is not a text message and sometimes the young people because you're in this, people send you message from the ipad and you will yeah, and you see it sent from my ipad I'm like I don't even know you If you don't have the time to sit down in a computer to send me an email then once again if I you, then it's different. I'm not saying that you cannot send emails through your iPad or iPhone or whatever. I'm not saying that. But when, for example, you apply for a position and it looks like you were just waiting the bus and you just hit send, it is not the best start for a relationship. Be careful the way you write your emails, the salutations. As I say, most of us are not native speakers, so it's a learning process. You go on Google, you will find a lot of template letters, like how to start a letter, how to send a letter, take one hour to kind of look that, send letters that are formal and good. And of course, when you know people, then you can send emails without saying hi, but without saying, without the formal salutations and the endings. But be very careful about that. I've received a lot of emails, particularly people coming from developing countries, and that are not native English speakers. And I know that they are very respectful people and they don't want to disrespect me or whatever. But be very careful about that. And I will just finish with this comment with one anecdote. One day I had an argument with a colleague because actually I sat down, I sent him a long email explaining a situation, and he replied with his iPad. And of course, the second problem when you reply with iPads or iPhones is that you tend to be short, which is it sometimes sounds snappy. So he replied with his period, boom. And I got that, I'm like, I sit down one hour to explain your situation, that's all what you have to say. And I got mad. And after that, I realized, again, I'm sorry, I just read your email in the phone and wanted to reply quickly to you. But still, we already had an argument because to me was disrespectful to me by replying without saying hi, without saying goodbye, without anything in two lines. So be very careful with that. I know that you're a generation very connected. But when you send emails, particularly formal emails, if you want to send them using iPhones or whatever, be very careful to be sure that when they're sent, they're in proper form. I think we'll have to, we're running sort of over. And maybe we can continue these discussions informally. So let's thank Yanni. And actually thank you all for our great discussion. Thank you.