When people in the academia talk about networking, the first thing that comes to our minds is an academic conference. I have been to one such conferences back in 2018 when I was in the senior year of my undergraduate education. When my paper got selected, I was super excited to present in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh in front of the top researchers in that area. I was expecting it to be very formal, but to my astonishment it was very interactive and causal. I met many researchers and exchanged banters with a few PhD students too! :P Yet I must say this was a costly experience for me as I had to put the funds from my pocket.
Fast forward to 2020 COVID-19 pandemic time, things have transformed differently. I would take the side of someone who says that these kinds of events will be meaningful only when it requires physical presence. But guess what – the online mode is not bad!
Webinars are prevalent for a long time now, but it is during such time when people are realising the benefits of these. Firstly, most of the webinar series are free of cost. Just in the last one week, I attended 3 such events, and all of them had over 70 participation – which is definitely a great benchmark! Secondly, it is convenient for everyone to participate remotely and saves a lot of time. And finally, it is a really good way to get connected to many people at the same time. (I literally work up 15 mins before the start of every event! :P).
And coming to the role of social media, I bet it has huge contribution in publicizing these events on a global scale to connect people with similar interests all around the world. After attending these I came to know about the real depth and challenges in area of interest. Twitter and LinkedIn are also playing a major role in connected smart minds. The presenter of today’s webinar that I attended posted her publication a few days ago which came into the feed to the organizer of the webinar series and he has requested her to present that work as it was very novel. The prof literally credited Twitter for this! XD
If this system is not monetized in the future, I believe that it will certainly lead to some great metamorphism in networking events. Although, I could afford the conference, I still empathize with those who cannot despite having bright minds. I feel that making such events online and free of cost would do justice and provide everyone equal opportunity to learn.
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