VIScon – not just a student conference
VIScon, the largest student-organised conference at ETH Zurich, continues to grow. The next edition in October 2020 invites students to dive deeper into topics from academia and industry. Labs, institutes and professors can now submit proposals to participate.
Every October since 2018 the association of computer science students (VIS) has organised VIScon – the largest student-organised conference at ETH Zürich. At VIScon, students can experience and discuss computer science, engineering and entrepreneurship in the form of talks, workshops, exhibits, a hackathon and much more.
This year's convention should not only continue to grow by welcoming more guests than ever before but also in what it delivers. Students will be able to take a deeper look at research topics from both academia and industry. I talked with David Kalchofner, the Head of Symposium who is responsible for this year's talks, workshops and exhibits, and Nicole Wenzinger, the Head of the Organising Committee, to find out what we can expect from the next VIScon.
You are aiming to include experts from academia in the next Symposium. How does that fit an event that set out to show students the world outside the lecture halls?
David Kalchofner: VIScon is about showing students what can be done with the skills they learn, but outside the lecture halls doesn't mean outside the university. The Symposium is no longer an event just for computer science students from ETH Zürich: the number of guests from other departments and other universities has grown. Last year, I signed up as a helper and was blown away by how kind and open the people were and what an awesome event they created. As an HSR student, I saw and heard a lot of new things and was able to talk with various interesting people. VIScon showed me where I want to pursue my Master's degree.
What benefits does participating in the Symposium offer experts from academia?
Nicole Wenzinger: Students don't usually see a lot of the research going on at their departments. While professors often tell us a little bit about their work, the students' curricula rarely involve any of their professors' research, leaving us wondering what other things they do. We want to be a platform for discussion between students and experts. This seems to work better for experts from the industry than academia. Even though we put our main focus on the discussion of current topics, companies also like to participate in this event to simply represent themselves. Unfortunately, we don't notice the same trend with their academic counterparts. With the addition of the exhibition and more space for discussion, we think that our Symposium is just as much of a possibility for professors and labs to put themselves out there and engage future researchers.
How is the content for the talks and workshops chosen and who decides what will be shown at the exhibition?
David Kalchofner: We contact institutes and companies which we deem interesting and fitting for the Symposium. We collect their proposals and our content team does their best to create a diverse schedule, influenced by the results of the survey and feedback.
Nicole Wenzinger: We try to offer something different every year based on surveys and feedback from our visitors and speakers. But as we said, we students miss a lot of the research that is going on. That's why we are particularly happy about any proposal submitted by academic institutes.