Programme - at a glance
Networkshop49, 27-29 April 2021
Programme streams
Networkshop49 will focus on four key streams:
Building digital infrastructure, resilience and flexibility
True digital resilience enables you to consistently meet staff and student expectations in all circumstances, without detracting from your broader digital transformation strategy.
This stream will help prepare you for technical issues that can interrupt everyday operations and you’ll hear how members have ensured they have the digital resilience, flexibility and scalability needed to respond to ever-changing conditions and priorities. There’s never been a more critical time to build digital resilience and flexibility to keep ahead of the changing agile needs of student learning.
Digital culture as the new normal
With the shift towards a fully digital culture now well underway, there’s never been a more vital time to improve your digital literacy.
This stream will enable you to expand your skill set through professional development sessions. Interactive training workshops will give you a taster of various subject areas and provide you with a practical learning experience.
Network resilience - preparing for challenging demands and threats in the new world
This stream will address the challenges members are facing and how they’ve worked to resolve them.
Expect to hear how your peers have responded to threats such as ransomware and how they’re remaining flexible around remote teaching and learning, without compromising on protection.
Lessons learned from rapid transformation
Over the last 12 months, the education and research sector has undergone rapid transformation like never before.
This stream will take you on a journey of discovery through the personal experience of your peers and their campus networking challenges. You’ll hear about how others have implemented flexible mobility access, rapid new security postures and agile cloud solutions to support teaching and learning on campus and off-campus.
What to expect
The three-day programme will offer a variety of innovative content and engaging session formats including:
- Keynotes
Hear from industry experts and gain a greater understanding of what’s next for the world of technology and digital infrastructure - Lightning talks
A series of short 10-minute presentations on a single subject - Parallel sessions
In-depth presentations focusing on one or more subjects and referencing real-life case studies - Training workshops (a brand new addition to Networkshop49)
Interactive training workshops are included within the programme, designed to give you a taster of various subject areas and provide you with a practical learning experience - Networking and entertainment
Interact with fellow delegates, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors throughout the event and take part in a virtual gaming session that gives players a truly immersive and fun experience - On-demand content
Delegates will receive exclusive access to sessions post-event, plus additional resources designed to enhance your learning experience
Keynote speakers
Dr Hannah Fry, associate professor in the mathematics of cities, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL
Dr Hannah Fry is an associate professor in the mathematics of cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL where she studies patterns in human behaviour. Her research applies to a wide range of social problems and questions, from shopping and transport to urban crime, riots and terrorism.
Her critically acclaimed BBC documentaries include Horizon: Diagnosis on Demand? The Computer Will See You Now, Britain’s Greatest Invention, City in the Sky (BBC Two), Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry’s Mysterious World of Maths, The Joy of Winning, The Joy of Data, Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic and Calculating Ada (BBC Four). She also co-presents The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry (BBC Radio 4) and The Maths of Life with Lauren Laverne (BBC Radio 6).
Hannah is the author of Hello World, published in 2018.
Hannah’s session description will be announced soon.
Ewan Birney, deputy director general, EMBL and director, EMBL-EBI
Ewan completed his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute with Richard Durbin. In 2000, he became Head of Nucleotide data at EMBL-EBI and in 2012 he took on the role of associate director at the institute. He became director of EMBL-EBI in 2015. In 2020, Ewan became the deputy director general of EMBL. In this role, he assists the EMBL director general in relation to engagement with EMBL member states and external representation.
Ewan led the analysis of the human genome gene set, mouse and chicken genomes and the ENCODE project, focusing on non-coding elements of the human genome. Ewan’s main areas of research include functional genomics, DNA algorithms, statistical methods to analyse genomic information (in particular information associated with individual differences in humans and Medaka fish) and use of images for chromatin structure.
Ewan is a non-executive director of Genomics England, and a consultant and advisor to a number of companies, including Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Dovetail Genomics and GSK. Ewan was elected an EMBO member in 2012, a fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 and a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015. In 2019, Ewan became a board member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
He has received a number of awards including the 2003 Francis Crick Award from the Royal Society, the 2005 Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology and the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Award for contributions in Open Source Bioinformatics.
Ewan’s session description will be announced soon.
Ahmed Benallegue, networks and security team leader, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
This session will explore the challenges of moving a data centre from the UK (Reading) to Italy (Bologna).
Ahmed will cover the reasons for the move, the challenges of coordinating the delivery of the telecommunications with the availability of the new data centre and the challenges of moving the data. Plus testing the final outcome and how COVID-19 helped/hindered the process.
Confirmed sessions
Back to the Future: networking and access management from the 1990s to the 2020s
Speaker: Nick Skelton, consultant, University of Reading.
This session will look back over three decades of networking, starting from the first IP traffic on Janet in 1991 and consider some of the trends in that time. Attendees will hear some predictions for the technologies and skills we will need: identity, federation and access management, negotiation, collaboration and trust-building.
Unified identity and access management demystified
Speaker: Anjanesh Babu, systems architect and network manager (gardens and museums), University of Oxford.
This session will explore how to shape an identity and access management strategy. It will also cover how to use the same control plane for cloud and on-premise; reuse, repurpose and apply conditional logic at entry points.
IPv6 at Imperial
Speaker: David Stockdale, network engineer, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine.
This session will explore where Imperial are with IPv6, recent developments and upcoming plans.
The role of Zoom in moving to an online/blended teaching model
Speakers:
- Steven Jack, multimedia comms unit team lead, University of Glasgow
- Bruce Rodger, head, IT infrastructure, University of Strathclyde
How Zoom facilitated working from home during the pandemic.
The obstacle is the way - opportunities during the COVID crisis
Speaker: Renyk de'Vandre, network development manager, University of Birmingham.
This session will explore the impact of COVID on technical teams, turning barriers into opportunities and lessons learned from the new way of working. It will look at the unforeseen benefits and taking advantage of them, with practical examples of turning an obstacle into an opportunity.
Further keynote speakers and programme details will be available soon.
Book your place
Early bird booking is now open.