Banff workshop proposal?

Stream: general

[Scott Morrison]

Dear all, but particularly the mathematicians! (@Kevin Buzzard, @Patrick Massot, @Johan Commelin, @Neil Strickland, @Reid Barton)

The annual call for proposals at Banff has just come out https://www.birs.ca/announcements/2019-06-06/2021-Call-for-Proposals

I've successfully organised a number of conferences there in the past, and I wonder if we might try putting something in...

[Scott Morrison]

They do a great job of handling all the logistical work, which is great, and they cover accommodation and local expenses for all participants, so it can be a great way to get people together.

[Scott Morrison]

• It's nice to have meetings to get everyone together to talk and work...!
• I think it's good to try to push formalisation and interactive theorem proving into visible places, and organising conferences is part of this.

[Scott Morrison]

Maybe we'd be shut out immediately, but I don't think it's obvious. We would certainly want to invite people from CS (and potentially even other fields, as at Big Proof), but I think if the organisers are primarily mathematicians we could make a strong case that something new and exciting is happening.

[Scott Morrison]

Proposing a workshop at BIRS is not a huge amount of work --- from memory you end up writing a 5-10 page document for the proposal, and then if you're accepted, being an organiser is pretty easy.

[Johan Commelin]

Sounds like an exciting idea!

[Kevin Buzzard]

I've also organised a Banff gig and indeed my experience was also that it was pretty easy. My memory is that you're only allowed to invite about 15 people though -- although perhaps we went for some smaller option or something?

[Scott Morrison]

There are two versions: the 21 person or 42 person workshops.

[Neil Strickland]

I'm in favour of that if we can avoid triggering any geopolitical disasters (the Brexit vote happened the last time I was in Banff ..)