[GMOD-devel] BCC2020 meeting will be held online

[Dave C. <cle...@gm...>]

Hello all,

*The Organizing Committee of the 2020 Bioinformatics Community Conference
(BCC2020) <https://bcc2020.github.io/> has come to the difficult decision
to hold the conference online.* We are making this decision after much
consideration of the ongoing spread of COVID-19, striving to take the most
socially responsible action while maintaining a forum in which our
community can share their work and discovery. It is hard to predict what
things will look like in July, but given current reports and models, it
seems unlikely that the situation will be back to “business as usual”. We
also considered that, even if some people were able to attend, it is
possible that many people would still find it difficult to travel to
Toronto. We believe that making this decision now will allow us to focus on
organizing an engaging conference in this new format.

We will be inviting our community to engage in new ways, and hope that
BCC2020 will be an important space for discussion for the Open Source
bioinformatics community.

*The virtual meeting will still take place as planned, on July 18-21.*
There will be opportunities for training
<https://bcc2020.github.io/training> before the main meeting, and a
CollaborationFest <https://bcc2020.github.io/cofest> starting on July 22.
We are discussing how to arrange the schedule to allow for participation
across the globe; more details will be coming soon.

*Registration will open in a few weeks*, and fees will be lower than for an
in-person meeting.

*The abstract submission deadline has been postponed to April 30th.*
Abstracts will follow the usual submission and review processes.

There are many details to be worked out – for example, a meeting schedule
that takes into account time zones, videoconferencing technology, ways to
enrich our online interactions (while acknowledging that nothing can
replace the vital social interaction that in-person meetings provide), etc.
Many of these aspects are new for us too; we welcome your input,
particularly if you have suggestions about how to make our first Virtual
Bioinformatics Community Conference a success.

We are looking forward to exploring this new meeting format, and we hope
you will join us.

Stay well,
BCC2020 Organizers <https://bcc2020.github.io/about/#team>

-- 
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