Summary of DEBS 2011

In this picture you can see me explaining the rules of  
the game for the "gong show", while Francois Bry, who was the gong master, is standing behind with the gong.   You can also see that the podium has the Jeopardy! setting, and indeed we had in one of the sessions live game of two of the participants against Watson. 

Paul Vincent, skilfully played the host, Scott Schneider and Michael Olson were the contestants, although the audience helped them Watson won this time also.


These pictures and many others were taken by Roland Stuhmer, and can be found on Flickr.


Besides the fun part we also had 33 papers, poster and demo session, DEBS challenges, tutorial day, PhD workshop and 4 keynote speakers


Overall,  the community that includes researchers and some people from industry is becoming stable. the terminology becomes more coherent (everybody are talking about patterns), and the quality becomes higher. 


There were participants from 23 countries from all the 5 continents including the first representative from Africa, a faculty member from Tanzania.    I think that still the largest community is in Europe.  


Organizing a conference is a lot of work, but is also a rewarding activity.   My next conference in early August - AAAI in SFO,  but there I am just a participant.     


More on DEBS 2011 -- later