September 2019 OES Beacon

Recon Report (September 2019)

Brian Horsburgh, OES RECON Committee Co-Chair    

Recon committee meeting in Marseille

Welcome to my first report as RECON Co-Chair for OES. Its been a fairly busy first 6 months, working with my MTS Co-Chair, Andy Clark, and the members of the RECON Committee. Just prior to the Marseille conference, Andy Clark, Fausto Ferreira and I conducted a site visit to Ireland where we hope to hold OCEANS Europe in 2023. We met with an enthusiastic team in Limerick, led by Professor Dan Toal, a veteran OCEANS attendee and technical contributor. Also in the team is Professor Elfed Lewis, who has chaired previous IEEE conferences in Limerick, including IEEE Sensors in 2011 for 650 delegates, and IFOT (International Conference on Internet of Things)  in April 2019. We had an extensive viewing of the facilities at the University of Limerick campus, which is well placed to accommodate an OCEANS conference, with the addition of a marquee for exhibits. There are good quality hotels nearby and extensive student style en suite accommodation on campus. Travel to Limerick is via either Dublin or Shannon international airports, with motorway connections to Limerick and excellent express bus services direct to the campus. We also visited The Marine Institute in Galway, whose staff are keen to support and assist with the conference, perhaps offering a technical visit to their Institute as part of the programme. The preliminary LOC in Limerick will reach out to Galway and other institutes in Ireland (Dublin/Cork) to form a strong Ireland team. Following the visit, Prof. Edin Omerdic made a brief presentation to the RECON committee in Marseille. The committee agreed to recommend to JOAB that Limerick is the site for OCEANS Europe in 2023.

At our RECON Committee meeting in Marseille, we approved the LOI for Portland, Oregon, for OCEANS N.A. in 2023, and recommended it to JOAB, with the proviso that they consider dates earlier in October ’23. The LOC there is led by Rick Williams, and an all MTS team. The committee also heard a verbal update from Chris Whitt on OCEANS N.A. Halifax for 2024, where everything is progressing well. Chris suggested that a site visit be conducted before Seattle, to see the new convention centre and hotels in the city. This visit has now been fixed for 23/24 September ’19. All three of the above LOCs will give their full presentations and budgets to the RECON Committee in Seattle on Saturday, 26 October.

On future sites, the Committee discussed and agreed the following options be further investigated;

OCEANS Australasia 2024 – Perth, Australia

OCEANS Europe 2025 – Hamburg, Germany or Croatia

OCEANS N.A. 2025 – Monterey, CA (now convention centre is open)

OCEANS Australasia 2026 – Kaoshiung, Taiwan or Quingdao, China

OCEANS N.A. 2026 – Still open for proposals

I hope we will have an update on Perth, from Bill Kirkwood, who is attending AUT 2019 there, just prior to Seattle. There will be discussions with potential industry partners and with local SUT members there.

Brian Horsburgh    14/08/19