Posters and Ducks: First time at IC2S2

Last week, I (Brahmani) had the chance to attend the IC2S2 conference in Norrköping, Sweden. Being one of the biggest conferences in this field, with over 600 attendees, and seeing that this was my first time, I was extremely daunted and nervous before the conference. I never expected it to be as smooth sailing as it was. I had the chance to meet many professors, have fruitful discussions with fellow researchers and have fun! An added bonus was that I got to present a poster on our work looking into how Political Engagement changed after Elon Musk bought Twitter. 

The poster session was great and I received amazing feedback and the occasional praise for using ‘Twitter’ instead of ‘X’. There were countless posters and parallel sessions that were very informative. I came out with so many new ideas and having made many connections. My personal favourite was the keynote by Sarah Williams from the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT. Her work was overwhelming, inspiring and just awesome. Her work clearly shows how to transform your results so that they actually make an impact, especially with policy makers who are always surrounded by reports. I highly suggest going through the visualisations for each of her projects on the website.

Overall, it was a great experience in Norrköping, Sweden (Not just because I fell in love with the ducks there)! It was a truly supportive community and I can’t wait for next year’s iteration in Vermont. Maybe, I can run into Bernie Sanders while being there :) 

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