Speakers
Description
H02020 took place in June last year and was the European Southern Observatory's e-conference. Originally planned as a classical conference to be held in Munich, we decided to convert the meeting to the virtual domain less than 3 months before the starting date. With little time to prepare and no real blueprint to go by, our goals were to conduct a scientifically engaging meeting and to draw some conclusions for how to make e-conferencing a useful, safe, inclusive, and carbon friendly addition to the landscape of international scientific discourse. Our arXiv preprint 2104.00089 summarizes our meeting in some detail.
Here, we briefly describe the setup of #H02020 with a focus on how we sought to improve interactions between participants and for reducing participation barriers. Based on the feedback gathered and analysis of participant demographics, we also identify some issues that deserve further consideration to ensure that e-conferences can truly realize their potential for improving the diversity, equity, and inclusion dimension of global scientific exchange.
