I have just returned from one of the biggest international conferences in computer science. One of my papers about Cloud migration and decision support has been accepted in the Web engineering (technical) track of the conference.

The experience was overwhelming: almost 2000 researchers from around the globe were participating in this conference, Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the Web) held a keynote on the future of the Web, and Neelie Kroes (boss of von Guttenberg, former German minister of defense) talked about her view on the internet, Web and privacy. Technical tracks and papers were interesting, presentations  well prepared/papers extremely well written and very diverse as the conference covers a huge area of topics. In total: amazing experience at a A+ conference!

Lyon is stunningly beautiful, with an old city and 2 rivers dividing Lyon in 3 parts, one being a peninsula. The heard of French food was incredible and I really had a life time experience of a unique cuisine and wine.

The whole conference is a big step in my progress as a researcher and pushes my efforts towards receiving a PhD. Not only will the publication reach many researchers and promote my work, but also the conference itself was an unforgettable experience I see as a must for every researcher: visit a huge high-quality conference once.

You can find the paper I published on my CV page and the album of photos I shot in Lyon and during the conference on my picasa Web albums page.