As an
old timer who's been there and seen that, I can tell you that every OpenMRS
meeting is ALLWAYS unique - nothing goes exactly the way you planned it, or expected to
see it happen. Every experience is always different; from fantastic venues to
successful implementers and star contributors, you always meet someone or
something that takes your breath away.
Flying
into Singapore for Summit 2015, I was already very very exhausted. It didn’t
matter what I would accomplish over the next few days; nothing could possibly
surpass the fact that I had written a four page scientific paper and a five
page research paper entirely in transit, and without a pinch of internet. I had
also figured out that this would be my 'official' old timer year - this was the
meeting where I was going to sit in the back row and smile at the passionate
first timers, and talk about the good old days with Jeremy Keiper and the first
ever OpenMRS couple, the Seymours.
Thankfully,
I was also experienced enough to know that of course, this wasn’t how it was
going to turn out, because that's the first rule of conferencing - nothing
happens the way that you planned.
Speaking
of our host country, I can say that Singapore lived up to my very very high
expectations. The airport was fantastic, I didn’t need visa to get in, and
everything was so so clean and orderly. And of course, everyone was so very
polite, and didn’t expect tips, and gave you exact change. And don't even get me started on the internet. In many ways,
Singapore was a wonderful destination to all attendees.
Summit
wise, I was looking forward to meet a few folks - notably the Harshas' (ha,
sorry, but that's your nickname now). Its' interesting that I had worked with
Harsha Kumara for so many years, but hadn't met him in person even once! And
then there was Mayank, one of our students from GSoC 2014, and Daniel Kayiwa,
who I hadn’t seen in over three years. And of course, there were also the
unexpected meetings- Dr. Niranjan from my home base, Sri Lanka, Hong Phuc Dang from FOSSASIA, and the good old folks
from Thoughtworks.
The
first pe-summit day was the usual craziness of trying to memorize roads and
hotels, which conference room would be used for what, etc.
Thankfully,
folks at the National University of Singapore took a lot of trouble to help us,
which was greatly appreciated.
In
terms of sessions, I was mostly impressed / interested by those on Clinical Decision
Support (CDS) and OpenMRS Education (which I had to organize), local community
forming and the Women in Technology (which I took part in).
I was
also greatly impressed by the quality and turnout for the lightning talks and PowerPoint
Karaoke sessions, but as the organizer, I feel that I may have been a bit
biased in these choices :)
Last
but not least, there were happy times spent at the Ramen Champion (kids, eat
healthy, Ramen is NOT for you!) ogling things that I could not buy at various
tech malls, and the joys of rooming with Joaquin Blaya, who wrote me a
fantastic recommendation letter for grad school (we'll agree not to blame him
for that mess ;)
However, all said and done, the important part
of a conference is, 'what did you walk away with? Why was the summit important
to you?'
In my
case, the summit helped me discuss a lot of work to come, and paved the way for
several potential collaborations. Also, wish me luck as I start discussions on
what may become my first ever implementation! (more details yet to come!)
