the year(s) with no conferences

This week, Nature has an article on “A year without conferences? How the coronavirus pandemic could change research”, where the journalist predicts a potential halt to scientific conferences. Taking as example the cancelled American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting, to quote

“many of them rapidly set up platforms to hold virtual sessions for the meeting, inviting their speakers to present by webcam or to upload their presentations to online repositories. Researchers who hadn’t been in a position to fly to Denver found themselves able to participate from afar in what became the Virtual APS March Meeting.”

On this same day I should have been traveling from Brussels to Grenoble for the ABC meeting there. Instead, I had a four day virtual panel meeting from home and there is no virtual version of the ABC in Gre[e]noble workshop. As no one seemed particularly eager to animate a few local talks with no guarantee of spectators. As things deteriorated to home confinement,  it was actually better not to spend more efforts on the project. Since this confinement is bound to last much longer, it would however become more obvious that the community and the academic societies need plan virtual conference and invent different channels to gather members and disseminate innovation.