Hello, and thank you for listening to the MicroBibCade podcast. Here, we will be discussing topics in microbial biology. We hope that we can give you some insights, tips, and tricks along the way. There is so much information we all know from working in the field, but nobody really writes it down. There's no manual, and it's assumed you'll pick it up. We hope to fill in a few of these gaps. My co-hosts are Dr. Nabil Ali Khan and Professor Andrew Page. Nabil is the Head of Informatics at the Quadrant Institute in Norwich, UK, and Andrew is the Director of Technical Innovation for Liagen in Cambridge, UK. I am Dr. Lee Katz, and I'm a Senior Vice-President at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in the United States. Hello, everyone, and we're back at day two of Global Microbial Identifier. And I'm your host, Andrew Page. I'm here with Lee Katz and our very special guest, who is running this whole event. Introduce yourself. My name is Will Hsiao. I'm a Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University, and I work with Emma Griffiths to put on this event. We agreed to host back in 2019, right before the pandemic, and little do we know that it will be an event that's, I guess, four years in the making. Well, I mean, clearly, it's the best event if it's taken four years to organize, you know? It takes four years to think about it, and then a few months to organize. Yeah, so thank you for putting on the event. I'm really enjoying it. What about yourself, Lee? I'm really enjoying it, too. I was just talking about how this is like one of the best organized conferences. Unfortunately, delayed due to the pandemic, but I'm glad we're back. So, can I ask, how did you go about inviting people? Because, obviously, you've targeted particular groups of people to bring, you know, what was the whole process there? Yeah, so I think we, after years of involving with GMI, realized that there is a lot of emphasis towards later years on equities and diversity and mechanisms to support that through our efforts. And there's more and more low- and middle-income country participants have been invited and involved. And, as you know, the last GMI was hosted in Singapore, partly to support the travel logistics for communities in Asia and so on. So, for this particular meeting, that's what we emphasized on, which is trying to build on that experience and then continue to see how through social sciences and more social-oriented discussions, how we can improve the data-sharing process and make it more equitable and not just a one-solution-fits-all type of approach. Actually, what I found very refreshing with this conference is the inclusion of people, say, from First Nations and from marginalized communities. This isn't something I've seen in other conferences. So, you know, you're very much leading the way there. Thanks. Yeah. And I have to say, in terms of sort of setting up all that initial vision was one thing, but then getting the people to actually come and talk. And a lot of time, people have to back out due to various reasons. So, for example, for the indigenous one, there's actually, without us knowing, there are major First Nations conference going on right now across town. So, we actually had a bit of trouble inviting the most... We tried quite a few groups and they all are going to that event. So, finally, we found someone who are very relevant, of course, but who are able to join. So, we're kind of a sign of relief. But I should also say that all that work was really done by Emma. So, I sort of had that initial discussion with her, and then it was very much up to her to solve the problem. So, I can't take any credit for that. And it's also a very gender-balanced conference as well, which, again, is quite unusual, particularly in mathematics, where it skews much more towards male. So, fair play on doing that. You know, we haven't had a mammal yet. That's correct. Which is a male-only panel. Yeah. Lee is just looking perplexed there. What the hell are you talking about? I appreciate your clarification. So, you set out with some ideas on what the conference should be, and we're a day and a half into it. Is it kind of meeting your expectations? I think so. I think, in many ways, it exceeds our expectation in terms of what... in terms of the level of engagement from the participants, and also the... We have some preconceived notions of where we want to direct the conversations, but actually, we realize those preconceived notions did not fully encompass the diversity and the richness of the discussion. So, that was really great to see. And this is a bioinformatics podcast, so do you have any other bioinformatics... I don't know. Things that you want to express? This is your bread and butter anyway, you know? Yeah, no, I fully realize this is a bioinformatics podcast, and the other aspect of this conference, as we outlined, is interoperability, right? So, the reason I sort of highlight the social aspect is that I think if we take those perspectives in mind when we design our technological solutions, then we can achieve much better buy-in, we can make the practice more equitable. So, that's the goal we're trying to achieve. Awesome. I want to hear your take too. I wasn't sure what to do about Tim Hortons when I got here, so I want to hear your take on this too, because I asked Emma. It's only fair. As soon as I got into Vancouver that night, I went to Tim Hortons and I got a Boston Cream Donut. What's your opinion? I think there are a lot better donut shops in Vancouver than Tim Hortons, but if you want to prove yourself Canadian, then just go in and order a Double Double Coffee. What is a Double Double Coffee? It's two sugar and two cream. Oh my god, that sounds terrible. Usually when it's a double coffee or something, it's like double an espresso, but it's just double the extras. Oh, it just means two sugar and two cream. To go is your black coffee. They're not that fancy. I don't think they have espresso there. Very good. All right. Well, thank you very much for talking to us. And yeah, good luck with the rest of the conference. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to us at home. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate us on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, or the platform of your choice. Follow us on Twitter at Microbinfee. And if you don't like this podcast, please don't do anything. This podcast was recorded by the Microbial Bioinformatics Group. The opinions expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CDC or the Quadram Institute.