The TRANSFORM 2020 hackathon, Part 1

The TRANSFORM 2020 hackathon, Part 1

TRANSFORM 2020 started and ended as a hackathon, with a virtual conference sandwiched in between. It became the beating heart of the entire TRANSFORM event, bringing people together around ambitious digital subsurface projects. One participant said on day 1: “It’s easier to connect meaningfully with people here than at a live conference.”

Previous hackathon have lasted a weekend but this one took over two weekends and, for some teams, every day in between. So there was plenty of time to get stuck in, and teams with people in far-flung timezones were able to work almost around the clock. It made for an intense 9 days.

The first batch of projects are listed below. To find out more about a project, get in touch with its champion, or visit its channel, in the Software Underground Slack. The channels all start with #t20- so, for example, the segysak channel is #t20-segysak.

52-things

Matteo Niccoli coordinated Dan Austin, Matt Hall, and 1 or 2 others around the 52 Things You Should Know About Geocomputing book project. This long-term project got a much-needed boost and is now ready to go to the next stage. (And there is still time to help if you are interested!) — Repo.

“Calculation of the distance between objects in a photograph has been around since the mid-19th century —nearly as long as modern photography itself. Digital photogrammetry, or structure-from-motion, is the modern equivalent: a technique that can reconstruct, in detail, the relative location of millions of features...”
— Adam Cawood & Clare Bond

welliovoz

Justin Gosses has been hacking on a JavaScript well-data viewer for a while, and it has now reached a good level of functionality. Nathan Jones, Lorenzo Perozzi and Nikita helped out, along with 3 or 4 others. Repo.

wellioviz_example_plot.png

gostin

Dieter Werthmüller led the ‘geo open-source tie-in’ project, to form an umbrella for non-seismic ideas using the GemPy–Fatiando–SimPeg—PyGIMLi universe, along with PyVista and some other projects. This incredibly active team involved at least 20 or so people; get get the lowdown from this document. Repo.

Gempy_SimPEG_Analyst.gif

segysak

Tony Hallam coordinated an effort to wrap segyio with xarray, resulting in the SEG-Y Swiss Army Knife (segysak). This was one of the most active projects during Transform, and the team, which included Steve Purves, Gijs Straathof, Fabio Contreras, and Alessandro Amato del Monte, got a lot done. If you use seismic data in Python, you need this! Repo.

_examples_notebooks_example_amplitude_extraction_displays_36_0.png

DASH WELL VIZ

Doug McClymont made a great start on a framework for a well-log web app, with tons of activity from a large team including Kent Inverarity (creator of lasio), Michael Harty, Behrooz Bashokooh, Julio Rodriguez, Wesley Banfield, Brian Burnham, and Kieran Blacker. Repo. Check out the app.

dash-well-viz-example.png

Bruges Geomech

Friso Brouwer and Alessandro Amato del Monte, along with several others, made some good progress on adding geomechanics functionality (Zobackogram, anyone?) to the bruges library. Repo (will be added to the main bruges repo soon).

zobackogram.png

And that’s only half of the projects! More soon, stay tuned.

UPDATE: Read Part 2 of this post.

Many thanks to our sponsors for their generous support of this event

sponsors_letterbox.png

TRANSFORM 2020

TRANSFORM 2020

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.

sponsors_letterbox.png

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.

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:

Screenshot from 2020-06-17 16-02-08.png

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:

unsession_map.png
strike-for-black-lives.png

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.

#ShutDownSTEM at TRANSFORM

#ShutDownSTEM at TRANSFORM

In support of #ShutDownSTEM, #strike4blacklives and the anti-racism movement, we are shutting down TRANSFORM and the Software Underground on Wednesday 10 June, and clearing Wednesday's conference schedule.

The TRANSFORM 2020 virtual conference is officially underway. But as you know, there is a great deal of unrest in the world at the moment, particularly around the issue of racism and especially anti-black racism. The Software Underground has stated that we would do more to fight racism in earth science, and to strive to be the most diverse, inclusive community we can be.

On Friday, black academics in astronomy proposed action: a strike in science and technology of at least 1 day — Wednesday 10 June — in support of Black Lives Matter and the anti-racism movement. Please read this call to action: https://www.particlesforjustice.org/

It ends like this:

we call on people who are not Black to spend a day undertaking discussion and action that furthers this work, while providing Black scientists with a day of rest. Every single institution around the world can and should get involved in this work, and the strike marks an opportunity to recommit to the humanist values which should underpin academic work, including the belief that Black Lives Matter.

This, in turn, led to the #ShutDownSTEM action on Wednesday, which you can also read about via the Twitter hashtag.

There is also currently an open petition drawing attention to the same injustice, but in geoscience: Call for a Robust Anti-Racism Plan for The Geosciences (https://www.change.org/p/geoscientists-call-for-a-robust-anti-racism-plan-for-the-geosciences). This is the core of that document:

we humbly but firmly demand all geoscience societies and organizations take concrete action against racism – particularly the anti-Black racism that plagues our community – because written and/or oral denouncement does not go far enough.

This is more than just a petition, it is a call to clear, accountable action. It sets out what we can do, as individual scientists and as a society, to fight systemic racism in our field and beyond. Please consider signing it.

As for the events we had planned for Wednesday, we are still figuring out the new schedule. Wednesday's content will move to other days. The conversations will pick up again on Thursday. Then, over the coming months, we will find ways to act and make a difference. As part of our ambition to be a better and more inclusive society, we will plan events to discuss diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and justice.

Something new has surfaced

“In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
— Eric Hoffer

It is an exciting time to be a subsurface scientist. Studying the earth makes you familiar with the idea that the world is continually changing. The pace of change is usually gradual, but occasionally there are periods of intense transition. The changes in the economy, technology, and society have affected many aspects of our lives. Digital tools have been augmenting our workflows with machine intelligence. Remote work and online collaboration is now a reality for many of us. The energy transition is real even if the outcome is uncertain. The skill and experience profile required for a successful subsurface science career today is quite different than it was even five years ago, and it continues to evolve.

The Software Underground (or Swung, as it has come to be known) is a community of digital subsurface science enthusiasts — students, academics and professionals who make and use open digital tools to study the subsurface. Swung too has changed considerably from its humble beginning in 2014 as a mailing list of a couple of dozen people. It has become a thriving online community of over 2400 members who share the understanding that digital technology and subsurface science are no longer separable. Humanity needs digital-first earth science.

The Software Underground has organized events and activities to nurture this community. Hackathons and meetups are happening in cities all over the world. A popular conversation topic recently has been about what the professional societies have been doing to reflect this change and support our careers. They have made some attempts, but generally haven’t kept up with the pace of change. We realized we could do something about it.

One of the Software Underground events in 2019 — the first Transform conference

One of the Software Underground events in 2019 — the first Transform conference

The new society

We are happy to announce that the Software Underground is now officially registered as a non-profit organization with the following stated purposes:

  • Serving and growing an online community of practice.

  • Organizing, and supporting community organization of, educational events such as conferences, meetings, meet-ups, courses, hackathons.

  • Maintaining, and supporting community maintenance of, open-access educational resources for the community.

  • Publishing an open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

  • Building relationships with industry and academia to promote the professional interests of our members.

Initially, we are required to name some founding directors, to kick things off and get the society started. We will have elections at the first Annual General Meeting for a more democratic approach to selecting directors. The founding directors are:

  • Filippo Broggini

  • Jesper Dramsch 

  • Brendon Hall 

  • Matt Hall 

  • Steve Purves

  • Chance Sanger 

  • Jo Walsh 

  • Dieter Werthmüller

If you are already a member, and are content with the conversations on Slack, nothing will change. But if you want to see more happening in the community, we’re ready to support you. If you would like to get involved building the Software Underground join the conversation on the #swung-org channel.

Can’t wait to get started? You’re in luck: today, we are kicking off our biggest event ever — Transform 2020 — a week-long celebration of digital geoscience, with hackathons, tutorials, lightning talks, and group discussions. Don’t miss it!

LONDON2019_mk2.png