Despite MEGA 2021 being fully virtual, we try our best to facilitate scientific discussions and social interactions between the participants. We will use
- ZOOM for the plenary talks,
- Slack as a forum for questions, discussions, and planings,
- Gathertown to provide a virtual environment for the conference.
The access information is will be sent to registered participants. All plenary talks are given live on ZOOM, whereas the contributed talks were prerecorded and are available on the Schedule page. They are grouped into Contributed sessions, where it will be possible to discuss the articles and ask questions to the authors. These sessions will be held in Gathertown.
Gathertown creates an intuitive and easy-to-use (see below for basic instructions) virtual environment offering different features to enable interactions, both between smaller and larger groups. In particular, the contributed posters are on display in this virtual world and we will have a poster session with the authors of the posters in Gathertown.
In contrast to the previous conferences which were held in one specific place, MEGA21 is actual a global event happening potentially everywhere! We would like you to help us to make our worldwide connection through our common interest in Efficient Methods in Algebraic Geometry visible during the conference. We plan to do this in two ways: Firstly, we invite each en every participant to provide a short (ca. 15 seconds) greeting in her/his mother language (or favorite choice of languages . You do not have to limit it to one, of course 🙂 ) and secondly, through a daily “photo challenge” in which we will ask you to “show us” something from where you are (with daily “themes”). The first theme of the “photo challenge” for the weekend consists of a photo presenting you, the participants of the conference. Please use the link which you have received in the welcome email to transfer the photo to us – the photo will then be visible to the participants in the gathertown. Also, one special theme will be on Wednesday local food of your choice in the place you are right now – which will not make up for the nice conference dinner we had planned, but ….:)
General use of Gathertown:
- move with arrows,
- use x to interact with objects,
- discuss (talk/hear/see) when close enough to people
- looking for a friend? Search him/her in the participant list on the left and use locate/follow options
For more info on the functionalities of Gathertown, you can check out this video.
The initial starting point of your MEGAther journey is outside the main administrative building of UiT: Use the arrow keys to navigate to the front door to enter the lobby.
After entering the lobby, you will have access to all the different rooms of the conference:
Plenary talk room (on the right):
- use x access to the zoom room to attend plenary talks via ZOOM.
Contributed room (on the left):
- contains 3 spotlight zones making you audible from everyone in the room: one for the contributors (stage), one for the chair (on the right), and one for asking questions (on the left marked with Q).
- gives access to the individual rooms associated with the contributions (1 to 5).
Poster rooms (A and B) (up):
- use x to take a closer look at the posters
- interact with everyone around the same poster (light zone)
Women of Math (up):
- use x to watch the individual posters
Game lounge (up):
- need a break? Meet in the game lounge and try out the (many) different games available!
Roof bar (up):
- need some fresh air? Go to the roof bar and (virtually) visit Tromsø through the different videos and webcams!
Working spaces (in the lobby):
- the private spaces in the lobby are equipped with virtual whiteboards, feel free to use them – you can also work in groups there!
The MEGAther town contains other (more or less) hidden surprises that we let you discover during the week!