Coronavirus restrictions have led RStudio to cancel its in-person conference. On Twitter, the organisation announced that it will be holding its “first ever virtual event”: rstudio::global(2021). The event focusing on “all things R and RStudio” will take place on January 21st, 2021.
The free, 24-hour global event will include 30 talks with live Q&As, networking sessions and talks from a diverse array of experts.
The event will also include talks from 3 keynote speakers:
- Vicki Boykis – machine learning engineer at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com.
- John Burn-Murdoch – senior data visualisation journalist at the Financial Times. He is currently leading the FT’s data-driven coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Hadley Wickham – chief scientist at RStudio.
The organisers have also announced that their Diversity Scholar Program will be opening to participants from all over the world. In past years, the scholarship has covered the costs of conference registration (including workshops) and provided funds for travel and accommodation.
As rstudio::global(2021) is a free and virtual event, it remains to be seen what shape the scholarship will take this time around.