SDRA in Post-Covid Times
Monday, March 21 2022
Covid is over. It seems. Back to Life. It seems. So plans are that the HAMRADIO fair is going to take place in Friedrichshafen again. Yet we don't know how big it is going to be and what the effects of Covid will be. We have seen a massive change towards Home Office work and video conferences in the past two years, and also the SDRA has celebrated two very successful online formats.
Is there a way back? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that we all will be looking forward to sit together in the conference hall again, talk to each other, shake hands and in the evening have a beer and enjoy the barbequeue together. No in the sense that contributing to a conference online has become a pretty common standard. I do understand that it will be much easier to stay at home, not jump on a train or plane and contribute or participate nevertheless. It is cheaper and more convenient. But there is also a plus on our side: We have enjoyed the benefit of having speakers from other continents just like that. We have gone truly international, and we have been able to increase our audience by a large factor.
So one effect will remain: The possibility to participate online will be there in the future, too. Even though we are on site again, all our SDRA events will be hybrid. We will not be limited to the conference hall, but the SDRA will always have an online dimension, given that this has been our goal already on pre-Covid times.
This also applies to our very beneficial and trustful co-operation and partnership with the European GNURadio Days, which has come into existence on the background of the demand of online conferencing that is no longer bound by geographical constraints. I am looking forward to celebrate once again this partnership with our friends from France.
So the mode of operation will be this: If speakers are on site and want to give their talk live, we will be happy to do it this way. If speakers prefer to give their speech rather online, we will arrange a pre-recording of their talk for quality reasons. There will be an introduction by our moderators, then we will play the pre-recorded video, and afterwards we shall have a live discussion, which makes no difference compared to having people on the stage in person.
We have made good experiences with panels, so I envisage to welcome mixed online and in-presence participants and enjoy a degree of interaction that is becoming more and more common also in business life.
We will work with 30 minutes frames again. A regular talk shall be about 20-25 minutes in length, with a few minutes preparation to come to the stage, for the introduction, and then for the discussion afterwards. We are prepared to grant more time in case of fundamental talks and tutorials. As in the years before, we prefer presentations in English, while we don't exclude talks in German in cases a speaker is more confident.
So the 8th SDRA will take place on June 24/25/26 2022. As of now we are still a little unsure on which days we will host the programme, because the live event in Friedrichshafen will terminate on Sunday around lunchtime. So we will have to concentrate on Saturday 25 for the main event, while there may be some timeslots on Friday, but we will see.
The SDRA will open the stage for all enthusiasts, experts and professionals in Software Defined Radio, be them from academia, community or industry. The SDRA has the following goals:
- Support and drive institutional and personal research around Software Defined Radio
- Establish a conference where SDR developers can meet
- Attract Radio Amateurs and show paths into SDR
- Define a scientific format for talks, presentations and posters
- Define a publication platform together with the DARC publishing house
- Demonstrate modern radio technology to the interested public audience
Though we do not just want to address scientists, but the general Amateur Radio public. We welcome all contributions, tutorials, beginners' guides to SDR and the like. Even if you've never considered Software Defined Radio, we want to attract you as a listener with insightful information.
If you have conducted own research and experiments, please consider our Call For Papers:
https://2022.sdra.io/pages/call-for-papers.html
If you think that your research is worth demonstrating to an interested audience, feel free to contact us! We will be happy to help you with your publication. We are also happy about introductory talks that can help newbies to start into this thrilling and fascinating field of technology:
Email: sdra@darc.de