Kashumi Madampe

https://2020.icse-conferences.org/track/icse-2020-New-Ideas-and-Emerging-Results

I was bit busy with my Ph.D. after ICSE. So I could not write anything about my experience at ICSE main conference. Finally, here I go!

Pre-print of the paper: https://git.io/JvLRe

Video presentation:

Unfortunately, the conference happened online due to COVID-19 as I mentioned in my earlier post on presenting at CHASE workshop of the same conference.

Preparation:

Well, I did not have much of a hassle in preparing for this presentation as I was experienced with CHASE preparation 😉 . So, I prepared the video, and uploaded to the Google Drive provided by the conference organizers. Then they uploaded the video to the playlist of my session in Youtube.

I did not practice the presentation as I did for CHASE. I was bit tired of the work I had between CHASE workshop and main conference (yes, Ph.D. work and I was getting ready for Visualize Your Thesis competition). I really wanted a change since I was working from home since March, 2020. So, I took a risk and went shopping the day before the conference 🙊 .

But thankfully my friends were ever-ready to watch me doing the presentation. So, I did some practicing with Zainab and Dulaji after I was back from shopping.

Conference Day (8th July, 2020 – Morning Session):

This was different from the way how CHASE was organized. We were supposed to join the Slack and Zoom one hour before the session. Slack had channels for each conference room. Several sessions were going on at the same time. So, I was added to Room Baekjie. Then there was a seperate channel called Green room of Bakjie. Presenters are added to the Green room before the session and removed after the session (But you are left in the main Baekjie room through out the conference. Sounds crazy right? No, it was well organized). So, the ones in the Green room were called over Zoom by the organizers 30 minutes before the presentation. We were given instructions and session chair talked with all of us.

Here comes the funny part. Everyone else in my session were “big shots” I would say; well established researchers. Since there were around 15 minutes for the session to start, I started practicing the presentation. I thought I was on mute, but I was not. So everyone else in the session were hearing me practicing. I got a message from the session chair (Mei Nagappan – he is so good by the way) saying that my mic is ON. I saw the message only after I was done with practicing! 😂😂😂 I was laughing but others were so good, they did not care me practicing. All knew that this was my first ICSE.

Session started at 9 AM AEST (as I remember). I was the second speaker. Everything went smoothly. I did my talk over Zoom and it was live streamed on Youtube and conference website (They used a different platform for interactions and live stream of talks. Sadly, I can’t remember the name of it. This is what happens when you write a blog post after months of an event 😔 ). I had both my supervisors in the audience (I love them having in the audience so I feel confident), my friend Tingting watching on Youtube, and 76 other researchers around the world 🤯 .

I was asked whether I analysed the data according to the gender (which was not done) by someone in the audience (I can’t remember her name. My memory is so bad 😔 ) and I said that is out of my scope of the Ph.D. Mei suggested to analyse in that perspective as well; which is actually a great idea!

After the talk, I got an email from an Emeritus Professor appreciating my talk! That is one of the best things happened to me because of ICSE!

Overall, I loved the conference! I got to see a lot of faces I knew through papers. And I am looking forward to meeting them all in person in the coming conferences!