We did it! Surrounded by sawdust from the recent incorporation of the Software Underground as a non-profit, we emerged from the wreckage of the Covid-cancelled hackathons in Amsterdam and Houston. Not just alive, but full of vigour and hope for the new world of online scientific events. And everything — well, almost everything — worked out.
Before saying anything more, a huge Thank You to our sponsors for making our events possible. And a special mention for DELL Technologies, who have been an unflinching supporter of the Software Underground and Agile’s community events for years.
The audacious plan
Initially, our purpose was to move the cancelled hackathons online. So from 6 June to 14 June, Filippo Broggini and others hosted a 9-day hackathon. This worked so fantastically well that I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it was the most successful subsurface hackathon ever. But I’ll leave Filippo to tell you all about it in the coming days.
Our next thought was, “Let’s help people skill up and add some tutorials.” So Brendon Hall, Rob Leckenby and I hosted 14 completely free and fully interactive two- to three-hour tutorials during the week. All of these streamed direct to YouTube and will stay there forever (see links below).
Then we added two group-participation unsessions — one on geoscience careers, and one on open source tools — and two sets of lightning talks from anyone who wanted to give one. All of this while several of the hackathon projects were still in full swing. It was a hectic week!
The tutorials
Fair warning: there is about 37 hours of first-rate instruction in digital earth science here. The first two are totally approachable for beginners, (and there's no shortage of people in the Software Underground who can help you get started!) so there's truly something for everyone.
Getting started with Python — Robert Leckenby — Video — Repo
Using Python subsurface tools — Thomas Martin — Video — Repo
Open-source spatial data analytics with GeostatsPy — Michael Pyrcz — Video — Repo
Geological modeling with GemPy — Miguel de la Varga — Video — Repo
Digital subsurface data loaders — Jørgen Kvalsvik — Video — Repo
Geophysical Inversion in SimPEG — Lindsey Heagy — Video — Repo
Geologic image processing with Python — Joe Kington — Video — Repo
Intro to interactive visualization in Jupyter for well data — Ashley Russell — Video — Repo
Geophysical modeling with Devito — Rhodri Nelson — Video — Repo
From scattered data to gridded products using Verde — Leonardo Uieda — Video — Repo
Scalable and resilient systems architecture — Liz Dennett — Video — Repo
Scalable model training with Ray Tune — Steve Purves — Video — Repo
Geospatial analysis in Python — Martin Bentley — Video — Repo
Idea to MVP (web apps for scientists) — Matt Hall & Brendon Hall — Video — Repo
On-demand seismic processing with AWS — Constantine Vavourak — Video — Repo
A huge Thank You to all of the instrutors, who not only gave freely of their time and insight, but also are all using open code and open data. No paywalls here!
Lightning talks
I'm so glad we added these 24 five-minute talks to the schedule. It was no trouble filling them — people signed themselves up. Every single talk was enlightening in some way, and these sessions were both really fun to be in. Thank you to everyone who took part!
Here's Andrea Balza Morales talking about the GeoLatinas Coding Group, which meets on Zoom twice a week:
The unsessions
An 'unsession' is a scientific meeting session, but without talks. Instead, we have a group discussion — but not the painful sort where you pass a mic around. We have a discussion that involves every scientist in the room. Since holding the first geoscience 'unsession' at CSEG in 2013, we've continued to evolve and adapt the methodology, but Monday was the first time I've tried to do one online.
I'll write more about these unsessions in the coming days, but here's a high-level description of what happened:
Unsession 1: What is good career advice in 2020? Around 95 people showed up to the start of this conversation about jobs and skills. We shared our career paths so far, and groups chatted about the best — and worst! — job-related advice they'd received. Finally we identified and ranked ideas for tools the Software Underground could build to help us all help each other find work we love.
Unsession 2: What open tools are needed now? The second session had around 55 people in conversation around open source tools. We talked about our favourite pieces of software, and what subsurface-flavoured versions might look like. And we heard how 4 current projects are trying to fill gaps in our current workflows, for example in seismic data management, and between geological models and GIS.
Here's where participants in the unsessions on Monday (blue) and Tuesday (red) were located:
On Wednesday we cleared our schedule in support of the #ShutDownSTEM and #strike4blacklives activism. We did this to help shine a light on the fact that black and racialized people everywhere are systematically disadvantaged in academia, industry, government, and all avenues in which STEM is practiced. In place of our schedule,we individually used the day to educate ourselves and listen to black voices in STEM. We must do better.
If you have not already done so, I urge you to read and sign this petition, which seeks to directly address the diversity problem we face today in geoscience.
If you took part in Transform 2020 — we thank you for your participation, and hope you learned something and will tell your friends and return next time.
We’ll write more soon about Transform 2020, which I hope and believe will have ramifications for how this community collaborates in the future. So stay tuned for that.