YPN 2021: Meet the Young Professionals
On the 5th of February, the Young Professionals Network hosted the first virtual networking event of 2021. Members from all over the world came together to discuss the future activities of the Young Professionals Network and to connect with other young scientists and technical professionals. Did you miss out on the event? Here is a summary!
The future of the YPN
The Young Professionals Network has the ambition to serve as a meeting place for free-thinking where new solutions from a new generation can emerge. In addition to networking, the purpose of “YPN 2021: Meet the Young Professionals” was to present the goals and plan the activities for the Young Professionals Network in 2021.
Based on the feedback from the YPN survey 2020, we formulated three goals for YPN in 2021. The first goal is to ensure that the young professionals can meet and establish relationships. This entails that the Young Professionals Network will arrange more online events and use Zoom to guarantee more interaction and time for discussions. Besides, we are prepared for a sudden change of the corona situation and will arrange events in Vienna and other places if possible.
The second goal is to enable the next generation to take on formal positions and become experts through exchange of knowledge within the network. We encourage the members to share their work, research, science, of CTBT related topics with the network on the web portal or at online events. We also have a mentor program with great senior experts who are eager to transfer their knowledge. The third, and more long-term goal, is to make the network more self-driven and become more visible in a CTBTO context.
Enhancing interaction on the YPN web portal
The Young Professionals Network has its own web portal which is ideal for connecting with other members and exchanging ideas. However, the survey gave the impression that many members have not created a profile yet and that the web portal could have more interaction and discussions. Thus, the event participants discussed how they would like to use the YPN web portal and make it more attractive. Some of the members mentioned that creating a more detailed profile and sharing small updates in the stream would be a nice way to get to know others in the network. They further highlighted that the posts could be informal and casual, such as sharing a picture of everyday work.
Several members mentioned that creating an “associated YPN membership” could benefit the network. We also discussed whether new group threads with respective administrators could promote discussion and enhance interaction on the web portal. The groups could be related to any theme of interest, and the administrator would be responsible for the group and driving the conversation. Please feel free to send an e-mail to ypn@norsar if you have any ideas or would like to be an administrator of a group.
An eventful Spring
The general feedback from the survey was that the members would like to have more events and activities in 2021. We therefore invited the members to think of ways to enrichen the network and to create a tentative event plan together. The participants were very supportive and proposed several events.
Some of the topic and event ideas were “How to get into the CTBTO Working Group B expert groups”, “How do events get analyzed at the NDC and the IDC”, “Machine learning”, “NDC Workshop”, and “Science Panel: Technological Advances within IMS”. Experts have already agreed to contribute to new “Tech Talks” on these subjects and a final event plan for this Spring will be shared shortly.
Additionally, we encourage the members to contribute as presenters and to share with the community. This could be quite informal, such as talking about daily work, presenting a project, or discussing a topic with others. Besides, it can take on many forms, for example, an online event, a pre-recorded video, a blog post, or a picture on the YPN web portal.
“From Mongolia to Colombia”
As a proof that the YPN is truly global, young scientists and technical professionals from Italy, Egypt, Mongolia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, the Netherlands, Norway, Colombia, and Austria joined “YPN 2021: Meet the Young Professionals”. Some even stayed up past midnight to join the event due to time differences.
During the event, the participants got to know each other better and even found that many of the challenges, as well as opportunities connected to the corona pandemic, are the same across the globe. Many of the members have experienced a big change in their working situation and seemed to agree that home office has both pros and cons. Finally, the members shared their thoughts on how the Young Professionals Network and other members can help them.
PS! The Young Professionals Network is now on Twitter
YPN now has a Twitter account. This is a nice way to disseminate our work and to connect with people professionally. Please follow and/or retweet so we get a bigger following! The account is called “CTBT Young Professionals Network”.
The event presentation can be found at the bottom of the article. YPN member Brandow Lee has contributed to a Brazilian book about the CTBT: https://1drv.ms/f/s!At7HBEvdgkOXgYJDJyOf5V8BYOj_-g
