Author: Michael O'Sullivan

Kia ora koutou,

There is an opportunity to contribute to research on AI for response to the current and future pandemics. Please see the invitation below.

Ngā mihi, Mike (ORSNZ President and member of the GPAI AI & Pandemic Response Subgroup)

Were you involved in developing an AI system used in COVID-19 pandemic response? Please support research being conducted by The Future Society, the GPAI AI & Pandemic Response Subgroup, and the OECD by completing this survey by August 2nd: https://oecd.ai/wonk/pandemic

Kia ora koutou,

Just an update on the process to select the ORSNZ Council for 2021. This occurred at the online ORSNZ AGM and all Council members were retained as no other members were interested in serving on Council with one exception:

1. Sarah Marshall stepped down from the Communications role to be a Council member in 2019. In 2020, Tom Adams was elected to Council in the Communications role. Since we had a quorum at the AGM we were able to make this decision.

The regional contacts are:
Auckland – Paul Rouse
Wellington – Robyn Moore
Christchurch – Grant Read

Please get in touch if you have any questions or concerns about the ORSNZ Council for 2021.

Noho ora mai, Mike (ORSNZ President)

Kia ora koutou,

We have been invited to join this webinar. Please see the relevant parts of the invitation below.

Ngā mihi, Mike

“It is my pleasure to invite you all to the 5th IFORS global Webinar on Women in OR with a theme of Gender Diversity in the World: Initiatives and Issues in the O.R. Community, being held on June 29, 2021 at 9:00 AM Washington DC time. It is in the continuation of the IFORS global webinar series. Please find the invitation flyer attached herewith.

Take care and stay safe.

Sunity Shrestha Hada
Vice President-IFORS, representing APORS
Editor-in-Chief, IFORS Newsletter”

Global-Webinar-Series_Gender-Diversity.pdf

In collaboration with the CEIMIA, the GPAI’s AI and Pandemic Response Working Group is launching a Call for Proposal in connection with its project entitled “AI-powered immediate response to pandemics”. The consultancy is for updating and upgrading an existing living repository of AI initiatives to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic to be presented at the 2021 GPAI Summit in November. Please refer to the Call for Proposal linked down below for more information. Proposals must be submitted before Midnight AoE, JUNE 18, 2021.

https://ceimia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/AIPR-WG-Immediate-Response_Terms-of-Reference_2021-05-31.pdf

Joint ORSNZ-TPM seminar at University of Canterbury

Time: Monday 14 June 12.30-1.30pm
Place: Jack Erskine 315, University of Canterbury

The modelling of complex systems has been critical in informing the Aotearoa New Zealand response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and will continue to be important in our recovery. The Operations Research Society of New Zealand and Te Pūnaha Matatini invite you to join Dr Mike O’Sullivan (President, ORSNZ, and Incoming Deputy Director, TPM) for a seminar and discussion panel on complexity modelling. Mike will present some case studies of complex systems models that have been used to inform decisions during the pandemic, and concepts for models that can be used to help decision makers during the pandemic recovery and into the future. His 30-minute seminar will be followed by a discussion panel amongst complexity modellers from the Ōtautahi Christchurch area.

The room has a capacity of 33, so please RSVP to michael.osullivan AT auckland.ac.nz if you have an opportunity to do so.

Kia ora koutou,

Please find below an email from the ORAHS organisers. Note that their preferred date for completing the survey has passed, so I think if anyone interested fills it in ASAP is fine.

Noho ora mai, Mike (President, ORSNZ)

“ORAHS 2021 is on.  It will run in the week 5^th -9^th July 2021 entirely online and organized by Marion Penn from the University of Southampton and Sandy Rutherford from Simon Fraser University.  Please put the dates in your diary.

We were hoping that some of our family would be able to meet in person for ORAHS this year, and the decision about how to organise the conference has been delayed in the hope that it would become clear how this would work.  It is still looking uncertain/unlikely that travel will be possible so the decision has been made to have an entirely online conference.  We know that the later notice will mean some now have other plans, but hope to see as many of you as possible.

Over the last year the technology has been improving and new software has become available so we will be including time for discussion and social spaces to recreate the family feeling of the conference online as much as possible.

In order promote interactive discussion in the online format, we plan to replace some of the parallel sessions with discussion-based sessions. These would begin with 2-minute elevator talks by all of the speakers in the sessions. Each speaker would then have 30 minutes in a breakout room to expand on their talk or engage in interactive discussion. Participants would be able to choose which breakout room to attend and have the ability to switch between breakout rooms. For PhD students: the poster session – including the Steve Gallivan Award for PhD students – would be replaced by a special session in this format.

There will also be the usual small number of plenary talks by leaders in the field and a limited number of parallel sessions for 15 minute talks.

We are aiming to keep costs down and pass on the savings created by moving online.  We expect to have a cost of 20 euros for PhD students, and keep the cost as low as possible for everyone else.

It would greatly help us with budgeting (and other planning) if you could complete this short survey to let us know if you expect to be able to attend and what type of session you would like to contribute to:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhFlpIWsvWXBL81fUZ4Jve_uk3t6AIeSTi34rFUIUguH6t4w/viewform?usp=sf_link

Please complete the survey asap, if you can before the 9^th of April.

Please mail Melanie Reuter-Oppermann oppermann AT is.tu-darmstadt.de with any questions.”

ORSNZ is an organisation with about over 100 academic/ student/practitioner members, and is dedicated to the promotion  and support of a rather specialised mathematically oriented profession, which has seen declining activity levels and public profile in recent years, particularly outside Auckland.  ORSNZ would like to do some strategic planning on the purpose and direction of ORSNZ. The scope of work is:

1. 1. 1. Facilitate a strategic conversation with ORSNZ Council and, as appropriate, other ORSNZ members on the purpose and direction of ORSNZ;
      2. Link the strategic conversation to specific actions such as brand refresh, website development, etc.

Interested parties should contact Mike O’Sullivan (President, ORSNZ, at president AT orsnz.org.nz) with any questions and to provide a plan and estimated cost for the work.

Kia ora koutou,

Please see the flyer for this event.

Date: March 29th
Time: 9am Washington/3pm Rome/4pm Nairobi

Registration Link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZltBcfhpTOKoTaCgzKFKoA

Noho ora mai, Mike

ORSNZ is looking to review and refresh our WordPress web environment. The scope of work is as follows:

1) Engage with a representative group of our stakeholders to:
a. review previous planning docs;
b. review the current site; and
c. investigate other relevant sites;
and, consequently, produce a refresh plan including, but not limited to, suggested functionality, third-party plugins, and information architecture;

2) Work with the ORSNZ webmaster and other members to create a template, i.e., functionality but not content, for the new site;

3) Provide easy-to-understand, tested documentation for ORSNZ members to add content and manage the site.

Interested parties should contact Mike O’Sullivan (President, ORSNZ, at president AT orsnz.org.nz) with any questions and to provide a plan and estimated cost for the work.