Small challenges

The programme of events is great, the participants full of energy, but working at the Congress hasn’t been completely without challenges. I guess no conference of this magnitude can be expected to run without any hitches, and it makes for interesting times.

I’ve arrived at the office one morning to find the ancillary meeting offices completely in the dark; we walked around with a torch trying all the switches, to no avail. This morning, the lights worked but not the computers. At some point the computers in the “cyber corner”, which is open to all Congress participants, were not working. About 40 minutes ago, a presenter who had checked that her room was fully equipped yesterday evening came in a panic saying that her projector had disappeared, 20 minutes before she was due to present.

Thankfully, there is a large team of technicians and assistants floating around willing to help. Some are in charge of the air conditioning, others of the printers, others still of the cleaning. And they all respond. None of the hiccups have resulted in missed presentations and all have been solved within the hour. We are learning to relax, almost secure that everything will be just fine by the time we really need them to be.