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RIPE 83 Programme Committee Meeting

Wednesday, 26 January
11:00 – 12:30 UTC+2 Zoom Call

Present:

PC Chair: Franziska Lichtblau
PC Members: Brian Nisbet, Fernando Garcia, Jan Žorž, Wolfgang Tremmel

RIPE Chair Team: Mirjam Kühne, Niall O’Reilly

RIPE NCC Staff: Alexandra Vos, Dan Mogosanu

1) Introduction Dan

Dan introduced himself briefly to those who had not met him yet. Dan is the new Senior Event Organiser at the RIPE NCC and will be working on the RIPE meetings together with Alexandra. Dan has been working in commercial events for 15 years and is looking forward to working on the RIPE meetings.

2) Impressions from RIPE 83

Franziska said she is now at the level where she attends the meetings/sessions that she needs to but won’t attend new meetings or WG that she wouldn’t normally. Wolfgang said he’s in a very similar place to Franziska and had some sessions on in the background. From a PC member’s perspective, he found that the content was way lower than previously. Participants also seemed to be participating less.

Brian echoed what Franziska and Wolfgang said but was hesitant to say the quality of presentations was lower. It seemed like the energy amongst attendees wasn’t there. Brian noted that it seemed the same people were asking questions, but that was an anecdotal statement and not based on stats. The Meetecho platform remains to be a great virtual platform for events.

3) Views on RIPE 84 (Remote and/or Hybrid)

Alexandra informed the PC that the plan is to have a hybrid RIPE 84 meeting in Berlin from 16 – 20 May 2022. Only in case it’s not possible to have a safe hybrid meeting (e.g. tighter restrictions) will the meeting be fully online. The safety of participants comes first. Meetecho will be providing the webcast and platform for IETF 113 so the RIPE NCC Event Team and technical coordinators will travel to that meeting to see their set up. We will provide remote hubs in the five countries with highest number of RIPE meeting participants.

4) How to attract new/recurring speakers

Mirjam has been thinking about how to engage new and younger participants as there does seem to be a problem reaching out to the next generation. Franziska raised the point of there being a lot of enthusiasm amongst participants shortly before and during the RIPE meetings but then there doesn’t seem to be any follow up after. Franziska asked if it would be an idea to have a meeting in between RIPE meetings. Mirjam said she’s been doing smaller sessions but is still defining the right format for this.

5) Communication from the PC (see Vesna’s mail)

Franziska suggested to re-write the call for presentations to not only attract new/more submissions but also to inform presenters. Dan said people want to know what’s happening and what they can expect when submitting a presentation. Franziska suggested to add the Important Dates in the confirmation mail to speakers.
Action on Events: Dan to add his comments to the CfP and rephrase for the PC to review.

The feedback on the Lightning Talk submissions seemed to be that they’re accepted too late. Brian said that TNC accepts Lightning Talk well in advance and suggested the PC to do both. Accept some Lightning Talks earlier and accept some later. Mirjam said accepting them at the last minute kind of favours those who submit theirs later.
Action on Events: adjust the important dates timeline for the PC to review.

6) “Future Technology” or “Future Developments” Bof or interim meeting

Mirjam suggested having a session either before RIPE 84 or during RIPE 84, possibly about Future Technologies and asked the PC if they would like to host and chair the session. Mirjam said it will be just a 90 minute community session with someone from the WGCC, someone from the PC and RIPE NCC staff to support.

Brian said generally speaking he would but asked what an extra virtual meeting will bring and how much the research WG would take from the other WGs. E.g. IoT WG is there already but what do we see from it as RIPE meetings are operational.
This brought Franziska to the Academic Meeting, she thinks it’s a bad idea to have the Academic meeting outside of the RIPE meeting because academics are already very good at talking to other academics. She also said she doesn’t think there should be a research WG because a WG requires stuff needing to get done.

7) AOB

There was no AOB.
Franziska thanked all and closed the call.