Monday, June 16, 2008

My First Attempt: Paper Presentation in an International Conference & IT Park Visit

“International Conference on Electronic Commerce in the 21st Century” was the main title of the conference held in June 2 to 4 at Soaltee Crown Plaza, Kathmandu Nepal. When I appeared in SIGCOMM 2007 conference at Kyoto Japan, I was really surprised with the environment. I hadn’t had expected that environment on this conference though I was curious about the situation because I had to present my paper there. What if I could not answer expert’s questions!! :O. I was a bit afraid as the hall was full of foreigner and locals. My English is not good so far though I had already prepared somehow to cover up my 30mins presentation time.

The organizer had mistakes in formatting my paper which could easily be pointed out from the wrong mail address and wrong picture placement. Any way I felt really comfortable with presentation and as per my knowledge, I easily tackled the questions at the end.

Australian professor Kuzic was a bit funny and impressive. Almost Asian guys especially Indians were presenting their paper just reading slides. Kuzic commented it out that just to explain what we would understand...no need to read line by line. Another professor Leon from Luxemburg wanted to start his session with European Style (keep the audiences relaxed ...like provide them beer, whisky…). Sometimes the hall was disturbed with mobile ring during middle of the presentation…ha ha...it’s a Nepalese Style.

The last day of the conference was already planned for foreigner to visit to IT Park. By the way, I had never got a chance to visit IT park of Nepal which was located alone at Banepa. This was my opportunity having trip with foreign professors to IT Park. The member secretary and full time member of HLCIT briefly described about the environment and technology currently implemented in IT Park. One thing what they focused with proudly was about finger print verification to permit into the room. Ha ha ha...it was already old and nothing for foreigner. Hence Australian professor frankly commented that not to be proud of our work but be focused what we could do and approached with vision to Indian and Chinese which are the two major IT industries of the world. I appreciated his comment.



Discussion meeting at IT-Park, Banepa

Group photo on the IT-Park premise

The trip to Bhaktapur Durbar Square was also quite interesting. I had to visit friends in the evening for software development and outsourcing plan. So I just separated from the group who had next plan to visit to Pashupati around 5:15PM from Quoteshwor. Thanks much to Dr. Tank Dhamala (Head, TU Central Department of Computer Science) for such a nice trip and for the successful completion of the conference.