Originally educated in theoretical and physical chemistry, Wouter Los entered in biology and has never left it. Interested in e-BioSciencie and data science, Dr. Los is the director of the Zoological Museum (Institute for Systematics and Population Biology) at the University of Amsterdam, participating in several European and global initiatives with respect to information technology in systematic biology. In July, Los will be one of the main speakers at TICAL Conference, sharing his experience with the latinamerican ICT directors. In this interview, he tells us a litlle on his expectations.
From the top of many years of professional experience, which means to you to be a key speaker at an event such as TICAL?
TICAL developed in the last years an impressive array of events and other activities. The TICAL conference is a fantastic mechanism for communication and to promote cooperation. The broad scope of topics in TICAL 2017 is important to bring together communities from Latin American countries and with other regions in the world. I feel honoured to speak at a TICAL conference and to reach out to its participants.
Starting from your area, how do you evaluate the development of University ICT in Latin America and how events like TICAL can enhance this process?
In various Latin American universities is strong involvement in ICT and with interesting developments and innovation. I also experienced this in a joint project of the European Commission and Brazil on connecting "Clouds" (EUBrazil-CloudConnect). But still other universities and countries are less engaged or not yet connected to an ICT network with sufficient bandwidth. TICAL may trigger improvement in this regard.
What can we expect from your presentation? What topics will be addressed in it?
My presentation will address challenges for biodiversity research infrastructures. Such research infrastructures produce and/or provide access to biodiversity data of various kinds (organisms, ecology, genetics) produced through observations, collections, planes and satellites, DNA-sequencers, and so on. The increasing size of new data sets can potentially assist in better understanding of issues such as interactions with climate change, and the implications for food production or epidemics. I will report about recent progress in regard to global cooperation of biodiversity research infrastructures.
Which are your personal expectations about the event? Do you already know Costa Rica?
I hope to meet new colleagues (apart from the Latin American colleagues that I already know) and who are interested in the subject of my presentation. I was once before in Costa Rica for a meeting of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
TICAL2017 will be held between July 3 and 5, 2017 in San José, Costa Rica. The Organizing Committee requests the interested parties to make their registration and reservations in the hotels. All information about TICAL2017, its program, the list of recommended hotels and the access to the other two events, are available at: http://tical2017.redclara.net/.
