Abstract
This year the International Conference for Advanced Vibrational Spectroscopy (ICAVS) celebrated its 10th biannual event from 7th to 12th July in Auckland, New Zealand (http://www.icavs.org/2019-conference/). The conference is held every two years and is rotated among continents. It focuses on vibrational spectroscopy, especially Raman and Infrared spectroscopy, and gives researchers in these fields an opportunity to present and discuss their findings and connect with other groups around the world. The conference comprised pre-conference workshops, plenary talks and smaller sessions, poster sessions and an award ceremony (Figure 2). The small sessions focused on more specific topics, e.g. Bioanalysis, Chemometrics, Minaturization, SORS, Food Safety, Instrumentation and many more. Usually four smaller sessions were held in different auditoriums at the same time.
Student pub night. Poster Sessions.
Two plenary talks focused mostly on NIRS, both incidentally on food safety and food process control with NIRS. The talk of Marena Manley from Stellenbosch University titled “Near-infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging: exploiting the spatial information for analysis of heterogenous agri-food products” shed light on the use of hyperspectral imaging for agricultural products, mainly maize. She was able to show that hyperspectral NIRS can be used for quality control by visualizing chemical compounds. Steve Holroyd from Fonterra on the other hand held a presentation titled “The use of near infrared spectroscopy in the dairy industry: New trends and applications”, which focused on how the dairy industry uses NIRS in their process control systems. He was able to demonstrate the possibility for long-term use of NIRS in industry.
The ICAVS10 welcomed over 300 scientists and researchers from over 30 countries. It was especially notable that over 80 students were able to attended, giving them the opportunity to show their ideas and research and get advice from more experienced scientists. The ICAVS10 was also able to attract over 30 sponsors, some of which could be visited at exhibition booths.
Lastly, the ICAVS10 also provided and organized a great variety of social events, e.g. the conference dinner, social excursion and a pub night (Figure 1). The social excursions gave first time New Zealand visitors an opportunity to explore the countries nature and attractions like Hobbiton. The conference dinner featured a memorable Maori dance performance and was held at Auckland’s War Memorial Museum. All events hoped to bring people together and give an opportunity for conversation. This really showed that the organizing committee took their motto for the conference, which they lend from Maori culture, to heart:
He aha te mea nui o te ao? What is the most important thing in the world?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! It is the people, it is the people, it is the people!
ICAVS11 will be held from 22 to 27 August 2021 in Krakow, Poland, Europe. Registration opens at 1 October 2020.