Welcome to the RSE Asia Australia 2024 unconference!

We invite you to join us for the third online Research Software Engineer (RSE) Asia Australia Unconference from the 10th to the 13th of September 2024. This is a joint partnership between the RSE Asia Association and the RSE Association of Australia and New Zealand. The theme for this year is “Sharing tech architectures”, there is an extra day for a Leaders Forum on the 10th, and the hashtag will be #RSEAA24.

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What is a Research Software Engineer?

Research Software Engineer is a broad term for people who combine programming and research skills that have trouble defining their role and value within academia. e.g researchers and academics who code, generalists who bring communities together across the research and technical domains, systems administrators who maintain research systems, and software engineers who work in the research domain.

What is an unconference?

An unconference is where the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion on a topic can claim a time and a space [1].

For this particular unconference, we will create breakout groups for the top three topics for each session. At the start of each day we will have an introduction session to provide the participants with some ideas on what they might want to discuss during the conference. We aim to summarise topics and make these available publicly after the unconference.

An overview of what the program will look like will be coming soon.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

How can I participate?

This will be run as a participant-first online unconference to ensure you have a say on how we develop the community and to allow you to share your valuable technical and social knowledge of research software with the community.

We will have three sessions in which discussion topics are suggested by the participants and one poster session. A schedule of events will be shown soon.

There are a few ways to participate:

  1. Register for the conference,
  2. Suggest, vote and comment on discussion topics, and
  3. Submit a poster, vote and comment on posters

Register for the Unconference

Coming soon: you will be able to register for RSEAA23!

There are also scholarships and accessibility micro-grants available. See Accessibility and Inclusivity section for more details.

Suggest Discussion Topics

We will have three sessions in which discussion topics are suggested by the participants. You can add, vote and comment on discussion topics and the top discussion topics will be given breakout rooms for each session.

Submit a discussion topic

Click here to see last year’s discussion topics

Submit a Poster

This year we are adding an online poster session on the 14th of September. We’re thrilled to offer you two awesome formats to showcase your research: the classic traditional poster and the dynamic set of slides.

At the end of the poster session we will be giving out awards for the posters that have generated the most interest.

Poster submission information

Click here to see last year’s posters.

How can I volunteer?

We have an invite-only organising committee, with places for anyone who wants to observe. The observer roles can attend meetings, make suggestions, are not expected to take on any tasks.

You can also fill out this form to volunteer as a session chair during the event.

You can find out more via the link to the volunteering page

Schedule

This is the current schedule for the event. All the timings are in UTC+10. Click on the 12.30 and 4.30 links below to see the times in your city.

  Leaders Forum - Tue 10th Sep 2024 Day 1 - Wed 11th Sep 2024 Day 2 - Thu 12th Sep 2024 Day 3 - Fri 13th Sep 2024
12:30 PM Opportunity to meet informally Opportunity to meet informally Opportunity to meet informally Oportunity to meet informally
1:00 PM Welcome, Vision and Survey Welcome, Vision, Explanation, and Partners Explain, Review Explain, Review
1:30 PM Introductions Keynote 1 Keynote 2 Strategy and Policy Panel
2:00 PM Intial Leaders Session First Session Third Session Strategy and Policy Panel
2:30 PM Initial Leaders Session First Session Third Session Strategy and Policy Panel
3:00 PM Break Break Break Break
3:30 PM Second Leaders Session Second Session Poster Session Actionable items
4:00 PM Second Leaders Session Second Session Poster Session Actionable items
4:30 PM Review and discussion Review and discussion Review and discussion Close and thank you

Accessibility and Inclusivity

We are committed to creating a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment for all participants.

In 2022, Liz Hare provided a high-level accessibility report for the conference that we use as a benchmark for our performance.

To this end we are offering scholarships for staff or students to participate for free, as well as 10 accessibility micro-grants valued at $50 AUD to help with internet, headphones, childcare etc.

Eligibility for the scholarships will be based on prioritising and maximising the inclusion and participation of people who have been impacted due to the cumulative effects of discrimination on factors such as race, gender, disability, gender identity, financial status,and the intersectionality of that discrimination as well as others not mentioned here.

Eligibility for the accessibility micro-grants will be based on a similar approach.

We encourage participants to apply even if they do not think they are eligible as this will allow us to prioritise and maximise diversity and inclusion. All information will be treated in a confidential manner.

You will need to provide one short paragraph to explain how you will benefit from the scholarship or micro-grant.

All successful recipients of scholarships and accessible micro-grants are expected to submit a poster for the event.

If you feel that the unconference is not matching up to the commitment of these ideals, please let us know by contacting the organising committee at rse2024 at rse-aunz.org.

Partner with us

If your organisation would like to partner with us, there are Key and Allied partnerships available via the RSEAA24 prospectus.

Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct is designed to provide all participants with community participation guidelines.

Contact Us

If you would like to know more or have any questions, please contact the organising committee at rse2024@rse-aunz.org by email.

Marketing materials

Our marketing materials for RSEAA24 are here.

Previous RSEAA unconferences