1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:02,360 Hi, and welcome to the Neil Ashton Podcast. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,880 In each episode, we explained some of the fascinating ways 3 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:09,080 that science and engineering are changing the world around us. 4 00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:12,720 We talked to leading engineers from elite level sports like 5 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,840 cycling in Formula One to some of the world's top academics to 6 00:00:16,840 --> 00:00:20,960 understand how fluid dynamics, machine learning, supercomputing 7 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:22,960 are bringing in a new era discovery. 8 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,040 We also hear some of their life stories, their career advice, 9 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,040 the lessons they've learned on the way that I hope will be 10 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:33,800 helpful to you too. So sit back and enjoy this 11 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:40,720 episode. Hi, and welcome back to the Neil 12 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:43,840 Ashton podcast. Apologies, this episode's a 13 00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:50,400 couple of days late, but I was at the NVIDIA GTC conference in 14 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:54,560 Washington, DC, and it got me thinking to myself that maybe, 15 00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:59,560 maybe it'd be good to do a quick episode just on the events, the 16 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:03,800 conferences, the places that I, I would recommend going to if 17 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:07,240 you wanted, you know, the continuing education to broaden 18 00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:10,160 your horizons to learn more about what's, what's coming 19 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,800 next. Hopefully look at it from the 20 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:19,080 pure engineering CAECFD sort of angle and maybe also more on the 21 00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:22,280 machine learning angle. And hopefully between the two, 22 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:26,360 you'll get some good events, maybe some of you listening to 23 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,320 this and go like, I know all this stuff. 24 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:32,080 I know about where to go to conferences, but I suspect there 25 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:33,920 are some. And I do get this asked a 26 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:39,040 reasonable ad time who yeah, maybe don't quite so often go to 27 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:40,240 these events. They don't come from that 28 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:43,880 background and want to know where should they go to get the 29 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:46,640 latest information. So I'll try and do that. 30 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:49,480 It'll be a short episode today. Maybe that's good for some 31 00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:53,080 people who find some of the episodes are two hours long, a 32 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:57,760 bit difficult to get through. I do put chapters in now, which 33 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,760 I'm hoping helps a little bit, but I know that they can be 34 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:02,560 quite hard to get through in more in Mongo. 35 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:06,600 I am trying to work on doing some short versions of some. 36 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,000 So over hopefully the next couple of months, I'm going to 37 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,200 try and put some of the previous episodes I've got, but put them 38 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:15,160 out as like 1020 minute versions. 39 00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:17,760 If you don't, you don't have a chance to watch the whole thing. 40 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:23,560 Listen to the whole thing. OK, so where would where would I 41 00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:27,160 go? And maybe let's start from the 42 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:31,120 more from a industry point of view, you know, if you're 43 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:34,280 wanting to really learn about what's happening in the 44 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:37,480 aerospace industry, what's happening in space systems, 45 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:42,480 what's happening in aeronautics, you can't get away from the AI 46 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:47,360 AA events, The American Institute of Astronautics and 47 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:49,440 Aeronautics. Oh, it's aeronautics and 48 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:51,080 astronautics. I can never remember which way 49 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:55,320 around that is. These are held every January and 50 00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,760 they're called, that's called SCYTEC and July, which is called 51 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,040 aviation. And these are an interesting 52 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:06,120 event because they're sort of a bridge between two. 53 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:12,440 You will see C-Suite of major engineering defense contractors, 54 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:18,000 governments there, you know, lockheeds and Raytheons and NASA 55 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:22,840 and others at at those events doing like very high level. 56 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:24,960 Even some like government officials will come and do 57 00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:28,080 panels, etcetera. There's an exhibition floor. 58 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:33,520 But how I was always used to the AO AA is through quite technical 59 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:37,600 talks. And if you are somebody who 60 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:43,240 works in let's, yeah, let's say like aircraft design, you know, 61 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,480 that's the place to go. And some of the big workshops 62 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:50,280 there are incredibly useful. But I'll get to that in a 63 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:54,240 minute. So you can submit papers, They 64 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:57,640 get published as a conference paper, you know, very highly 65 00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:01,720 regarded in the community. There is also a journal version 66 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:04,840 of it, Journal of aircraft, journal of, of other things 67 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:09,800 through the AI AA, you know, not that cheap to go to. 68 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:12,200 And being completely honest, you know, sometimes if you're not a 69 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,399 student, you're talking upwards of maybe $700.00 for, for the 70 00:04:16,399 --> 00:04:19,880 fee. I think they've settled now on 71 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:24,760 Florida and San Diego as the places, but I would still highly 72 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:27,000 recommend. Fantastic for networking. 73 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:31,840 You will see all of the key people in the sort of aerospace 74 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:35,760 domain from ACFD and experimental point of view and 75 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:40,360 some structural work as well. Not as much on machine learning, 76 00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:43,640 but that is starting to change. There's only one or two sessions 77 00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:48,960 out of you know 10s or hundreds but slowly they are adding more. 78 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,040 There is an exhibition area. So if your company listening to 79 00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:57,800 this, people do sponsor, it's not that big compared to let's 80 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:00,840 say a supercomputing or other type of events, but there 81 00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:03,040 definitely is sort of commercial opportunities. 82 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:06,280 I'd say if you're a student, you should definitely go to one of 83 00:05:06,280 --> 00:05:07,960 these. You know, the ability to bump 84 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:12,320 into people, ask questions. Technical talks are 30 minutes 85 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:16,200 long, I think, and or 20 to 30 minutes. 86 00:05:16,840 --> 00:05:19,920 And the thing that I like the most about the AW are the 87 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:24,080 workshops, things like the highly prediction workshop, drag 88 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:27,560 prediction workshop, AI surrogate modelling workshop, 89 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:32,640 which I haven't actually been to yet, and whatever workshop there 90 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:36,680 was like an acoustics workshop. I'm forgetting others. 91 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,480 I'm being a bit biased to my area, but lots of workshops that 92 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:45,080 tend to happen either before or afterwards or sometimes in the 93 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:49,520 middle depending on the event. And those workshops are, I have 94 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:52,840 found the best because you basically got all of the things 95 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:55,320 in one place. They usually book out a room, 96 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,800 you're there for the whole day. When I think back, you know, 97 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:03,840 10-15 years ago for me, I met and learned the most from those, 98 00:06:03,840 --> 00:06:06,240 which I really felt what was the community doing? 99 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:10,800 I just went to some random talks, not as much, but when it 100 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,080 was in the workshop because they often have like a, a workshop 101 00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:16,560 summary. And that's part of the reason 102 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:18,840 that I interviewed people like Chris Rumsey in the past, 103 00:06:18,840 --> 00:06:22,400 because what they've done for those workshops, you know, has 104 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,280 really been instrumental in helping people like me and 105 00:06:25,280 --> 00:06:29,720 others to understand the area. And, and that's ultimately why I 106 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,280 go to a conference. I want to make a sense of what's 107 00:06:32,280 --> 00:06:34,560 the community like? What's the, what are the 108 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:36,240 challenges? What's coming next? 109 00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:38,240 What are The Who are the main people? 110 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:41,560 What's the main technologies? Just get to know people. 111 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:43,840 I mean, now for me, it's friends as well. 112 00:06:43,840 --> 00:06:48,600 It's not just a a work thing, but I would say you can't beat 113 00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:51,480 the AI AA conference if you're from a government background or 114 00:06:51,480 --> 00:06:54,120 like defence. I mean, you always have to go to 115 00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:56,680 those events because the, all the program managers from the 116 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:01,200 DoD, from the like Air Force go to those. 117 00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:03,520 Again, Russ Cummings, that's why I interviewed him. 118 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,320 You know, he is key part of that area. 119 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:07,480 You'll probably see him almost all the AI AA. 120 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:14,680 So yeah, if you want to know what's going in aerospace, your 121 00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:18,760 technical or your sort of C-Suite, I would definitely go 122 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:22,560 to the to the AR AA conferences. And by the way, this is clearly 123 00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:25,280 not endorsed in any way by any of these conferences. 124 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,000 It's completely just my personal opinion, nothing to do with 125 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:35,520 NVIDIA or anybody else. I'd say then there are more sort 126 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:40,280 of niche workshops or events in the aerospace which have to date 127 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:45,040 normally been done by, by NASA. NASA has various workshops that 128 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:49,000 they'll tend to do with aerospace companies from ACFD 129 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:51,480 side, there were things like the High Fidelity workshop, there 130 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,440 was one in May, which was amazing, really, really good 131 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:57,040 event, had the opportunity to speak there. 132 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:02,680 And that was all the best sort of minds and and it was just a 133 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:04,800 great event. And sometimes they're not that 134 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:06,680 well advertised, so you have to look for them. 135 00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:09,960 But if you were to Google like NASA Workshop CFD or NASA 136 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,880 Workshop Supersonic, you know, if you're looking for like 137 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:18,360 supersonic aircraft design or, or hypersonics or something. 138 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:25,760 So yeah, those are very good. I'm going to ask you to comment 139 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:30,120 maybe if you go, if you're on YouTube or you can send me a 140 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:33,960 message on LinkedIn, if I post this on LinkedIn to look at what 141 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,480 conferences to go to, because I'd like to know from you what 142 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:38,840 you think because I maybe I'm blindsided. 143 00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:44,320 There are some in Europe and I'm forgetting the names of them 144 00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:48,280 now, but I have to say, I find the AI AA ones pretty big. 145 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:52,560 And you know, European folks from Asia come as well from 146 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:55,080 Australia. Yeah, can't be the AI AA. 147 00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,400 So how about the automotive side? 148 00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:03,960 Well, I don't think there's anything like the AI AA for 149 00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:08,000 automotive to be fair. Probably the closest would be 150 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,000 the SAE, which is the Society of Automotive Engineers. 151 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,720 It's probably the one that has, yeah, the closest connection, 152 00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:20,000 probably a little bit more US centric and slightly less 153 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,440 participation at global level. I could be wrong, but at least 154 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:27,960 from my opinion, quite a lot of European folks go to a different 155 00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:30,960 one, which is called FKFS, which I'll talk about in a second. 156 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:34,920 But if you look at SAE, so you know they have different tracks 157 00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:38,440 and torques, so they have aero, acoustics, aerodynamics, engine 158 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:42,160 design, car design, systems crash, you know the whole 159 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:45,800 automotive from ACFD point of view. 160 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:49,800 There's often talks from the car companies and software suppliers 161 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,960 who who do it. I'd say the technical rigor is 162 00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:57,960 maybe not as deep at the AR AA, but still still OK. 163 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:01,480 There is a journal attached to it, although I don't think it's 164 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:05,280 held in the same regard as the AI AA journal and personal 165 00:10:05,280 --> 00:10:08,200 opinions here. But still, if you're trying to 166 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:10,960 understand the automotive community to understand what's 167 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:14,880 going on, you'll see, you know, some top designers and engineers 168 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:18,000 from these car companies there. There was an exhibition area. 169 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:20,760 So for you know, for commercial companies or start-ups wanting 170 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:23,520 to to go, that's also a good one. 171 00:10:23,520 --> 00:10:25,920 And it's in April in Detroit every year. 172 00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:30,040 So that's one, the European version. 173 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,160 I would say it's probably FKFS, which is through the wind 174 00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:36,240 tunnel. FKFS, or at least I associate it 175 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:38,120 with the wind tunnel. Maybe it's a different entity, 176 00:10:38,400 --> 00:10:41,920 which is I think every two years in Germany. 177 00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:48,520 And that has, I'd say, you know, by definition more of a European 178 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:53,840 flavour to it, But influential people go to that event and has 179 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:57,560 more experimental or mixture of experimental got a quite a high 180 00:10:57,560 --> 00:11:01,120 bar to get accepted there. So they don't just accept 181 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:04,040 everything and and it's a good community. 182 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,600 So that's probably on the European angle. 183 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:11,480 There is never one which is a little bit more now and again, 184 00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:14,800 yeah, FKFS is still more experimental and CFD, whereas 185 00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:21,000 CAE is broader. You can go to aero vehicles. 186 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,360 This is ACFD 1. I think that's also every two 187 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,680 years that is experimental in CFD. 188 00:11:26,680 --> 00:11:31,040 It swaps around locations. That's not a bad one to go to. 189 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:36,160 Now I'm going to plug my own workshop that I set up with Gary 190 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:40,000 Page and now has got a great list of people and that's auto 191 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:42,320 CFD. So the Automotive CFD Protection 192 00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:47,240 workshop, which was basically inspired by the AI AA workshops 193 00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:52,120 that I spoke about, it's something I created in 2018 off 194 00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:54,280 the back of seeing the AI AA and saying, hey, why isn't there 195 00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:55,680 something like this for automotive? 196 00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:59,520 You know, we're always doing these benchmarks, doing the CFD 197 00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:02,320 stuff, but we don't have a place to go. 198 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:05,880 And so I pitched it for a little bit to get it done. 199 00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:09,600 I was at Oxford at the time, so we hosted Oxford, Gary Adams at 200 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,360 Loughborough, we did that. And then in the second one, 201 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:16,560 Urquhart from Ford joined and he's gone from strength to 202 00:12:16,560 --> 00:12:19,480 strength. And so auto CFD 5, it's going to 203 00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:22,160 be next year. So it's usually every two years. 204 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:27,080 And that is a very focused discussion or CFD methodology. 205 00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:31,480 I would like to say it does have all the main sort of CFD leads 206 00:12:31,480 --> 00:12:34,960 from all the major car companies and software providers now, but 207 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,800 it is very focused on CFD. So if you're interested in the 208 00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:40,160 FEA or anything like that, that's probably not the right 209 00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:45,360 place, but it's I even if I wasn't organizing it, I think it 210 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:49,440 would be a great event for for you to go to so you can look 211 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:57,280 that one up. I would then maybe start to move 212 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:02,760 towards slightly less industrial ones and let's think more around 213 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:08,280 like the, the topics of the physics or the sub area. 214 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:14,800 So what I mean by that is you've got things like ETM, European 215 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:18,080 turbulence transition measurement is a, oh, I'm sorry, 216 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:19,600 embarrassing here. I know the acronyms. 217 00:13:19,880 --> 00:13:22,600 That's more like a turbulence modelling one, often in a nice 218 00:13:22,600 --> 00:13:25,600 place by the sea. And there's lots of through the 219 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:28,160 a cough TAC. So a cough TAC is a European 220 00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:31,080 organization and they host lots of events. 221 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:33,480 In fact, there's a really good one coming up in March that I'm 222 00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:37,600 helping out with, which is the ML for fluids. 223 00:13:37,720 --> 00:13:40,280 So it's a really nice initiative to try and bring the machine 224 00:13:40,280 --> 00:13:42,960 learning and the fluids communities together. 225 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:47,800 And that's in Amsterdam. So Richard Dwight is one of the 226 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:50,880 leading people there, professor there at Delph. 227 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:54,280 That's another one of these like workshop type ones, which 228 00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:58,080 increasingly I like because they're typically less than 203 229 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:00,680 hundred people. They typically have some good 230 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:04,440 invited speakers, really focused discussions. 231 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:08,200 And considering the theme of this podcast is often around ML 232 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,560 and fluids or CFDI would definitely go because it's all 233 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:15,120 about trying to bring these two communities together. 234 00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:18,920 It's mainly the fluids community, but more and more the 235 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:23,840 ML people are coming. And so workshops I think are 236 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:27,160 really good. Now if you are from, let's say 237 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:31,120 the CFD domain or aerodynamics and you go to the AA, AA and you 238 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:32,960 go to SAE and you go to some of the others. 239 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:36,880 What you probably aren't aware of unless you've got into this 240 00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:41,840 is the ML conferences. Now the biggest one is Nurips 241 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:47,640 and EUR IPS, and I found out that's how you pronounce it, not 242 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:50,960 Nora, IPS, Nurips. There's a reason for that. 243 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:54,160 That's probably the biggest, most prestigious one where 244 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:56,320 actually just having a conference paper or even a 245 00:14:56,320 --> 00:15:01,240 poster, it's seen as a big deal. I've been protected from that 246 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:05,760 several Times Now, annoyingly, but I have been and they have 247 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:09,240 lots of workshops as well, like AI for science, AI for physics. 248 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:15,680 Really good one to go to and I mean just thousands of people 249 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:17,600 sponsored by all the tech companies. 250 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:22,320 If you are into machine learning go, you'll be blown away by the 251 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,280 attendance there. Another one is iclear, that's 252 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:28,000 another sort of machine learning one. 253 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:33,040 And the other one is ICML. So between Europe's ICML and 254 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:35,520 iclear, those are the top ones. In fact, if you want to get a 255 00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:41,280 job at Meta or one of the sort of tech companies, often you'll 256 00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:45,240 see or, you know, NVIDIA in our like more research labs, you'll 257 00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:48,320 see people say must have eye clear or nurse papers. 258 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:51,880 You know, it's seen as like the pinnacle from that field. 259 00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:54,120 So if you've never been to one of them, highly go. 260 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:57,120 And especially the workshops, I organized one with a few people 261 00:15:57,120 --> 00:16:01,040 eye clear and it was great. You get old people focused in 262 00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:05,000 this room with posters, lots of young researchers as well. 263 00:16:05,800 --> 00:16:08,120 And it's all around the world. They change location every year. 264 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:10,040 And it's, yeah, just all around the world. 265 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:17,760 There's a few then that I would say are now going down the more 266 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:23,040 like commercial route. And this is where, I don't know, 267 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,360 I sort of changed my mind halfway through when I was more 268 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:28,720 of a pure academic. I would look down upon these 269 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:31,640 events. So these are the ones like, you 270 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:34,280 know, your Siemens conference or your Answers conference or your 271 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:37,920 Dassault conference in like a vendor conference. 272 00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:43,160 But they are quite good actually from a networking point of view 273 00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:47,240 and from trying to like understand what's going on. 274 00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:51,920 They increasingly now they do try and get some industry 275 00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:53,520 speakers in from different companies. 276 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:55,080 I've given a talk a few of these. 277 00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:59,640 They'll bring some start-ups in. They're good if you're more like 278 00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:04,520 dealing from a a contracts point of view or or management point 279 00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,000 of view. They're good from a networking 280 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,160 and you get to meet a lot of the key people and they could be a 281 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:13,160 good exposure for your company. So probably not so much on the 282 00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:17,040 academic side, but they're not bad if your company wants to get 283 00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:20,359 some more exposure and you're thinking from slightly more like 284 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:24,960 a technical marketing side, the bigger they often do ones now 285 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:26,839 all around the world. So they'll do like, you know, a 286 00:17:26,839 --> 00:17:30,600 country Pacific version, but they they can be good. 287 00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:34,120 And they often have like workshops to learn the software. 288 00:17:34,120 --> 00:17:36,520 So if you want to get some of your younger staff to go there 289 00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,280 and like learn how to use the software, they do that. 290 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:43,480 So yeah, what I was initially more skeptical of those, but I 291 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:47,400 think that if you pick the right one, they actually can be not 292 00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,000 too bad from a tech point of view. 293 00:17:50,080 --> 00:17:55,440 Then you have my first exposure to this was, well, actually 294 00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:59,600 before we do that, maybe I'd go something like supercomputing. 295 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,400 I always think supercomputing is a good conference to go to, 296 00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:05,920 especially now with convergence of AI and HPCI. 297 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:07,960 Wouldn't if you want to understand the technology, the 298 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,080 hardware and the sort of software level, but maybe a 299 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,040 little bit closer to the hardware side, they're great to 300 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:16,320 go to, very good from a networking point of view. 301 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:20,480 You know, all the hardware companies, all the vendors, all 302 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:24,040 the cloud companies, Christy, now a lot of the AI companies go 303 00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:26,280 to supercomputing. It gets bigger and bigger and 304 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:29,440 bigger every year. That's a good one to go to, 305 00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:32,440 especially if you're a company, you're a sponsor or put a booth 306 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,360 there. They have, of course, the Gordon 307 00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:38,640 Bell Prize gets announced there. So it is quite prestigious. 308 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:43,440 There's lots of birds of a feather box panels, workshops. 309 00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:46,000 So and it's, it's definitely a community vibe. 310 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,520 So it's a bit of a catch all. You know, it it, it's not a 311 00:18:49,560 --> 00:18:52,720 specific discipline per SE. I guess HPC and supercomputing 312 00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:55,880 covers lots of areas, but if you want to learn more about the 313 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:58,280 hardware, which I think is important, it's part of the 314 00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:02,600 reason I moved to NVIDIA. I wanted to know more about the 315 00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:05,520 the sort of coming from the bottom up where I guess if you 316 00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:07,240 work for software company, you're sort of coming from the 317 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:09,920 top down. Good event to go to there is ISC 318 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,880 and Supercomputing Asia that are the European Asia feels to it. 319 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:17,480 Actually I went to the supercomputing in Europe. 320 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:20,960 It's a much smaller event, but again, actually pretty well 321 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:23,800 attended and had all most of the major people around. 322 00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:26,160 And you know, it's good to talk to people and ask them what's 323 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:28,040 their opinion? What how are things moving? 324 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:30,840 OK. And what I would mean to say is 325 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:35,360 the tech companies, the my first exposure to this was reinvent 326 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,920 when I was at AWS and I was blown away by the size of this 327 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,880 event in Las Vegas. They book out all these hotels 328 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,840 and along the strip and there must be 10s of thousands of 329 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:50,640 people there, just massive. And I must admit it was really 330 00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:55,000 good because they had so many workshops and in person events 331 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,040 where you could go and learn the software. 332 00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:01,600 They had, you know, amazing keynotes top, you know, figures 333 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:03,600 from biggest companies in the world. 334 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:07,720 And and yeah, from a networking point of view, from a learning 335 00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:09,680 point of view, you could do certifications there. 336 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,960 And then I saw, you know, Microsoft, I've never actually 337 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:16,080 been, but Microsoft do something, Google do something. 338 00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:19,440 And you can't help but come away from these events feeling like, 339 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:24,000 wow, I have just understood a different part of the tech will. 340 00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,760 And yeah, I guess going full circle, I just came back from 341 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:32,880 Nvidia's one of these GTC. And, you know, even if I wasn't 342 00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:36,800 working for NVIDIA and when I asked people who have come to 343 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,360 and asked their opinion of it, you know, they were all blown 344 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:42,760 away and were like, this has helped me so much to understand 345 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:45,360 the, the tech landscape. I, I sort of understand what's 346 00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:49,000 going on more now, of course you come in there to learn about 347 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:53,000 that particular company's technology, but you know, even 348 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,200 if you just watch one of these keynotes like like Jensen's 349 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:58,680 keynote, it, it does sort of open your eyes. 350 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,360 And, and that's certainly how I felt even before I joined. 351 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:06,920 So I think these events, these industry company events, whilst 352 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,120 you could be cynical and say, oh, they're just like marketing 353 00:21:09,120 --> 00:21:12,760 events actually, especially for the tech companies that, you 354 00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:15,800 know, got so big and have some influence on the world, They 355 00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:20,000 actually, they do give you a lot of insight and it can inspire 356 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,280 you. And yeah, whether you're a 357 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,520 student trying to get a job, go that network, you can speak to 358 00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:27,200 people. IA lot of people come up to me, 359 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:31,440 you know, who wanted to get some advice on their career or want 360 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:32,800 to know how to make the first steps. 361 00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:34,800 You know, you can go and speak to these people, you can get 362 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,440 advice. If you e-mail people, are they 363 00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:39,080 going to reply? If you send them a message on 364 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,480 LinkedIn, you know, it's hard. Whereas if you go to an event, 365 00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:46,720 you can go up to them in person and, and get it so, and often 366 00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:48,520 for students, there's discounts, etcetera. 367 00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:52,880 So I, I would, I think I should have gone to more of those 368 00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:55,000 events when I was younger. Actually, I don't think I did 369 00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,160 enough of those. And I would, I would definitely 370 00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:02,160 encourage it. So that was, yeah, I probably 371 00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:07,160 missed out so many events and things that I'm probably going 372 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:08,880 to regret when I after I posted this. 373 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:11,000 But at least I've given you a bit of a flavour. 374 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:15,560 Maybe I'll come back to this and talk about others when I've had 375 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:18,240 more time to think about it, but as I said, I'll keep this one 376 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,800 sweet and short. And yeah, hope it was useful for 377 00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:22,880 you.