[A]ABC in Hawai’i

ABC in Svalbard [update]

Even though no one can tell at this stage who will be allowed to travel to Svalbard mid April 2021, we are keeping the workshop to physically take place as planned in Longyearbyen. With at least a group of volunteers made of researchers from Oslo (since at the current time, travel between mainland Norway and Svalbard is authorised). The conference room reservation has been confirmed yesterday and there are a few hotel rooms pre-booked through Hurtigrutensvlabard.com. Anyone planning to attend just need to (i) register on the workshop webpage, (ii) book an hotel room for the duration of the workshop (or more)., and (iii) reserve a plane ticket as there are not that many flights planned.

Obviously this option should only attract a few brave souls (from nearby countries). We are thus running at the same time three mirror workshops in Brisbane (QUT), Coventry (University of Warwick), and Grenoble (IMAG & INRIA). Except for Warwick, where the current pandemic restrictions do not allow for a workshop to take place, the mirror workshops will take place in university buildings and be face-to-face (with video connections as well). Julyan Arbel has set-up a mirror webpage as well. With a (free) registration deadline of 31 March, the workshop being open to all who can attend. Hopefully enough of us will gather here or there to keep up with the spirit of the earlier ABC workshops. (To make the mirror places truly ABCesque, it should have been set in A as Autrans rather than Grenoble!)

ABC in Kuala Lumpur [alas not!]

While attending an “ABC in…” conference in Malaysia would have been most exciting, barring the current difficulties with traveling, especially since I had not heard of it at an earlier stage and also had never visited Malaysia (except when considering that Singapore was was one of the 14 states of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965), the “International Conference on Approximate Bayesian Computation in Science and Engineering”, scheduled for Feb 2021 is alas not the right opportunity! As a fake conference run by WASET, the “World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology”, which runs thousands of conferences every year, usually cramming several of them in the very same room at the very same time in a periphery motel..! As attendees, if any, are not expected to… attend. Judging from the current list of “selected papers”, none of them has any connection with ABC. It would be funny, were it not a swindle of sorts…

ABC in Svalbard [news #1]

We [Julien and myself] are quite pleased to announce that

• the scientific committee for the workshop has been gathered
• the webpage for the workshop is now on-line (with a wonderful walrus picture whose author we alas cannot identify)
• the workshop is now endorsed by both IMS and ISBA, which will handle registration (to open soon)
• the reservation of hotel rooms will be handled by Hurtigruten Svalbard through the above webpage (this is important as we already paid deposit for a certain number of rooms)
• we are definitely seeking both sponsors and organisers of mirror workshops in more populated locations

As an item of trivia, let me recall that Svalbard stands for the archipelago, while Spitsbergen is the name of the main island, where Longyearbyen is located. (In Icelandic, Svalbarði means cold rim or cold coast.)

ABC in Montréal

There will be a symposium on ABC in Montréal this coming December, the day before NIPS, in a continuation of past years NIPS workshops. While invited speakers and panelists have been selected by the committee, a call for papers is open. Note that in continuation with the best “ABC in…” tradition, registration is free! I will unfortunately be unable to make it to this symposium, as the date clashes with our Big Bayes conference at CIRM (free registration, with still some places available!).