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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#171

Post by martin8412 »

vient wrote: post #16

There is also a specific subset of this problem named "USA conferences on themes from Technology Alert List" with common examples being information security conferences like DEFCON or BlackHat. Just mentioning such conference during visa application may already give you headache, and usually you work in this field if you go to such conference - working in critical field automatically gets you an administrative proces…

Guess I shouldn't have said that I was attending DEF CON to the CBP agent at Dublin Airport, but I was just told to have a nice time in Vegas

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#172

Post by paganel »

xenophonf wrote: post #104
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

> is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference? In the U.S.A., lying on a government form is illegal, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 . I can't imagine other countries treating that differently.

That would explain the "are you a terrorist?" forms I've heard they're asking people to fill in on their flights to the US.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#173

Post by braza »

mcculley wrote: post #163

Is there an optimal country to host conferences? (One that presents the least hassles with visas?)

Back the day when I was in the academia I suggested some fixed set of countries visa friendly to host those conferences on AI/Databases.

The point that I made for the organizers is that, you can have clear instructions to the immigration offices and/or border control of those places if they had the full plan in advance: number of attendees, all info of the attendees already set in those departments, cross-check with their own embassies and consulates, etc.

Their justification in that time was that it's important to rotate in different cities because it closes the ties with the local academic community, but I did not brought that; can be a bit harsh but the whole thing sounded a reason to made academic tourism instead to foster a knowledge sharing.

Take that conference[1] for example and it's last venues:

2023 - Singapore 2022 - Seattle 2021 - Amsterdam 2020 - Online 2019 - Copenhagen 2018 - Vancouver 2017 - Como 2016 - Boston 2015 - Vienna 2014 - Silicon Valley 2013 - Hong Kong 2012 - Dublin 2011 - Chicago 2010 - Barcelona 2009 - New York 2008 - Lausanne 2007 - Minnesota

Unless that you have a strong passport or if you're from US/EU it's quite unlikely that you can have all the visas for attend all those conferences.

[1] - https://recsys.acm.org/

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#174

Post by EnglishmanITGuy »

India has such a bad passport (in respects to visa free access) because Indians the world over are known to flagrantly abuse overstaying.

There are poorer countries with better passports because their fellow countrymen aren't known for abusing the visa system.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#175

Post by paganel »

martin8412 wrote: post #171
vient wrote: post #16

There is also a specific subset of this problem named "USA conferences on themes from Technology Alert List" with common examples being information security conferences like DEFCON or BlackHat. Just mentioning such conference during visa application may already give you headache, and usually you work in this field if you go to such conference - working in critical field automatically gets you an administrative proces…

Guess I shouldn't have said that I was attending DEF CON to the CBP agent at Dublin Airport, but I was just told to have a nice time in Vegas

For all intents and purposes you most probably had no problems with this test [1], which is another problem that does not get explicitly mentioned that often (the author of the post alludes to it when writing about "by post-colonial geopolitics")

[1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/044/241/ski...

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#176

Post by msaharia »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #25

There is another side to this. Whenever I have organized conferences, I end up receiving lots of requests for invitation letters, typically from researchers in India, for Visa purposes. I absolutely understand this, and I have always done my best to accommodate these requests. But this is time-consuming, and it is very annoying when those researchers (who are sometimes also scheduled to speak) never show up, and neve…

They couldn’t come because of any number of reasons: there wasn’t enough time to apply for visa because you issued the letter 1 month before the meeting, didn’t get visa, didn’t get visa on time, visa got approved but passport didn’t arrive on time etc. You also can’t get reimbursed in India without showing actual receipts of conference, hotel etc.

You seem to think that your letter is a guarantee of visa. It’s not.

Source: I’m an academic with both US and Indian experience.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#177

Post by mcpackieh »

rbanffy wrote: post #148
sofixa wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operation Northwoods? Oh wait.. (Proposed false flag operation where the US joint chiefs of staff wanted to commit terrorist acts in the US and blame them on Cuba as a pretext for invading the island; it got up to the bloody president who shot it down, so it was a very serious plan)

Were the joint chiefs replaced because of that?

The president who shot it down got shot in the head.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#178

Post by hedora »

One thing is missing from this discussion: Visa processing times have shot up since before covid, and new organizers were still (naively) following timelines from a few years ago. They’ll adjust lead times to compensate, but the root cause is the needless increase in visa processing lag.

That’s something the governments need to fix, and it has much worse impacts than conference attendance woes.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#179

Post by oefrha »

gruez wrote: post #102
LastWeekendWas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Severely embarrassing the US government? Or maybe just providing free high quality heath care to all its citizens? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba ; The World Bank acknowledges that Cuba's life expectancy at birth exceeds that of the United States

You should at least do a search before making a snarky comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism_(U...

You should read up on Operation Condor.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#180

Post by azangru »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #165
azangru wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever participated in a research community? Yes. A little bit. Though not in CS. > You’re going to be at a severe disadvantage compared to peers in the US > ... > if you want to have a scientific career What does having a scientific career mean to you? Are there universities outside of the global North? Do people hold positions in those universities? Is there any research work happening there? Can someone g…

As somebody from the "Global South", it's ridiculous to say that the average quality of work in top universities in, say, India, is on the same level as the average quality of work in top universities, in, say, the US. This is not due to any difference in the inherent quality of the researchers, but due to (IMO) a lack of resources. This falls into two categories: The first is the lack of a high-expertise peer/mentor…

> As somebody from the "Global South", it's ridiculous to say that the average quality of work in top universities in, say, India, is on the same level as the average quality of work in top universities, in, say, the US.

I am not making this claim at all.

> So if you want to do that kind of research, you can't really stay in your home country.

I remain puzzled by this statement.

I could understand the argument if it were phrased like so: "The best science in field X is done in countries Y and Z; I want to be part of the cutting-edge top-level research; therefore, I want to go to country Y or Z". Or if it were phrased like this: "Best-paying jobs in field X are concentrated in countries Y and Z; I want to get a top-paying job; therefore, I want to go to country Y or Z". But your argument is structured differently. You are claiming that if you want to do research in field X; indeed, if you want to have a career in field X, you cannot stay in your home country. What I do not understand is whether there is any research in field X done in your home country? Are there any departments in any universities at all in your home country specialising in field X? They may be third-rate; but do they exist? If they exist, then there must be someone working there, right? If that is the case, you cannot very well make an argument that one cannot be a researcher in field X, or have a career in field X without leaving the country.

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