By Laxman Yetukuri and Richard Norman
The BioExcel Ambassador Program is all about reaching out to the biomolecular modelling and simulation community across Europe, especially in those areas which traditionally have not experienced a strong presence with regards training and support in the use of our software.
Together with our colleagues at the National Competence Centres for High Performance Computing (NCC) in Slovenia, Croatia and Italy we organised a one and half day workshop at the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana which brought together 36 participants (18 female and 18 male) from Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Austria, and the Czech Republic. 20 out of 36 participants filled in our survey and the results showed a strong satisfaction across nearly all aspects of the event. The event overall received very positive rating, with 13 giving the highest score (5) and 5 giving a score of 4. The selection of topics for the workshop was highly relevant (10 participants rated highest score (5), and 10 rated a score of 4). The quality of the lectures as well as hands-on session have received higher grades (either 5 or 4 from most participants).
The participants were very engaged as shown by the active participation in the quizzes. These quizzes are organised to improve the interactions in these workshops. For example, the PMX quiz received 23 responses, of which 70-80 % of the answers were correct, indicating that most learners successfully grasped the fundamentals of the PMX module.
We would like to thank all the participants, trainers and organisers. We will be holding two further Ambassador Program workshops later this year in Poland and Greece and if you are interested in attending look out for further details over the next few months. We hope to see you there!
Since we launched our Ambassador Program in June of 2023, we have created an Ambassador Council with members from 19 different European countries. The Ambassador Council consists of members from leading academic or government institutions working in the field of computational biomolecular modelling and simulations who are interested in proactively engaging with the local/national research communities to promote BioExcel’s activities, provide insights into their needs and work with BioExcel to organise national/regional training events. If your country is not represented and you would like to participate we encourage you to get in touch with us: info@bioexcel.eu
