Radio Camera Initiative Symposium Talk

Advice: For those out there who find themselves, mid-talk, running out of time, pick the section that most people would find confusing anyways, and skip it. I should have.

This was my first talk since defending my Ph.D. and girl did I have a lot to say. The Radio Camera Initiative (RCI) is an international group of radio astronomers who want to revolutionise radio interferometry. The RCI is funded by Schmidt Futures, because Eric Schmidt and Stuart Feldman see the amazing potential in the big-data challenge we know as radio interferometry. Basically, radio astronomy is the process of measuring radio signals at different place on Earth's surface and reconstructing a picture of the radio Universe. The data volumes in their reduced (averaged) form are on the order of TB/hour, and the challenge of inverting this data involves an international group of technical people.

At the moment there is a divide in the community with regards to how to go forward into the next generation of radio interferometry. Some, mostly those who grew up in the birth years of radio interferometry, want to face the new challenges by modifying old methods. Others see the plethora of new ideas that are emerging as an exciting shift if radio interferometry. My side is with the second, and I hope to win over the first side.

You can catch my talk and slides here, and again I remind you, I had a lot to say. I knew going in that I would be tight for time, having made 90 slides with only one hour for talk and discussion, but I wanted to get it all out. Therefore, I had to speak a bit faster than I would have liked. Looking back, I can only laugh and point the finger at myself for including too much material.