On her North America Tour to three major systems conferences, BCSSS program manager Angelika Schanda returned to her original specialization with the 37th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society (ISDC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

At this third step of her journey, Schanda continued her efforts to interlink the communities of the three fields of the Systems Sciences, System Dynamics and Cybernetics. She met with the System Dynamics Society’s (SDS) representatives to the International Federation of Systems Research (IFSR), Eliot Rich and Stefano Armenia. Being responsible for communication at the BCSSS, as well as being the newly appointed VP for Membership and PR at the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), Schanda met with Warren Farr, VP for Marketing and Communications at the SDS, to discuss possible collaborations for their respective communication strategies. These meetings as well as many further conversations with policy council representatives and society members made it abundantly clear, that there is a great interest and will for increased cooperation.

This spirit was also communicated in this year’s presidential address by Martin Schaffernicht, who gave the participants a perspective beyond their own field’s boundaries:

ISDC
Presidential Address at ISDC 2019

Aside from these encouraging moments, Schanda hosted three community sessions: one in her role as co-leader of the Social Impact Special Interest Group (SIG), one as founder of her community platform YoungModeler.net and one as a substitute representative for the Environmental SIG, representing Eline de Jong as co-lead. In each of these groups, she urged the participants not only to collaborate more within the field, but to also reach out to the Special Interest Groups and members of other system societies.

Finally, she made some new experiences with live audience feedback platforms and helped document the conferences with photography and social media, to create more outreach and participation beyond the conference.