Connect Germany and GTUG gathered on Zoom for their regional spring meeting

IT-Symposium 2021

The German Connect Chapter went back to its cadence for a regional event in 2021. As the 2020 international event had to be first moved and finally canceled, the community was eager to gather again – at least in a virtual format.

Targeted at a mainly German language audience, several international sponsors, speakers and participants joined, in this first regional event since 2019. The easy access approach had 166 people register for this one-and-a-half-day event on April, 27 and 28 and the final attendee count was at 139 for the two days.

Dr. Werner Alexi, German NonStop User Group GTUG Chairperson, and Dr. Heinz-Hermann Adam, Connect Germany President kicked off the event on Tuesday at 9 am. After a short welcome and introductions, attendees were able to join Breakout Rooms for presentations. A breadth of topics was covered by HPE and its technology and solution partners, as well as end-users in their community presentations. Gathering in Q&A sessions for one-on-one or group discussions was another option for all to move about in the virtual environment.

Just before the lunchbreak, breakouts closed and all attendees joined the plenary session of Gerhard Schwartz: „GAIA-X, the European Cloud“, to learn about the goals, applications, technical details and political implications for this important piece for European digital sovereignty.

Breakouts and Q&A opened again over the lunchbreak. Everyone moved around to enjoy the afternoon sessions or have follow-up conversations.

Some stayed well beyond close at 5 pm.

Due to the lack of opportunity for a social gathering in the evening, an early start for another half-day on Wednesday was easy for everyone.

Just after the breakout sessions concluded around noon, everyone gathered again in the main session. And while everyone is eager to go back to an in-person interaction experience, both the content as well as the technology was well received and might be an optional component in future activities.

For all those who attended and those who missed out, the presentation slides are available at:

There is no recoding of the sessions available, due to legal and data protection reasons.

We would like to thank all those who attended. Especially the volunteers, who made the conference possible and Pamela Bogner, for her as always professional support. A big thanks goes to all the sponsors, who support the Community in activities like these.

The promise is up, that there will be some local activity by both GTUG and Connect in Germany in the Fall – regardless whether it be in-person or in another virtual format.

And as we hope for the best, we will try to reboot the international format for 2022 in Berlin.

Stay tuned, stay Connect-ed and stay healthy!

 

Author

  • Dr. Heinz-Hermann Adam

    Heinz-Hermann Adam is the managing director of IVV Naturwissenschaften at the University of Münster. He is responsible for a large part of the university IT system that supports scientists, students, and employees in the fields of biology, chemistry, pharmacy, and physics in their daily work. With around 12,000 users and 6,000 mostly Windows-based systems, a wide variety of application software is key to getting the best "business results". Dr. Adam has particular expertise in the integration of heterogeneous IT systems since using OpenVMS Pathworks / Advanced Server as the center of a Windows NT domain. The transparent integration of Windows, Unix, and Macintosh for the simultaneous, efficient use of resources is the current task that arises in day-to-day operations. Before taking up his current position, Adam studied physics at the University of Münster and the Research Center Jülich and has worked in various IT-related positions at the University of Münster and elsewhere since 1995. He has been a member of German user associations since 1996 and regularly lectures at conferences.

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