AU NZ Carpentries Community Call: September 2024
On Tuesday, 10 September at 1:00pm NZT (see in your timezone), NeSI and ARDC will be hosting the next Carpentries Community Call of the year.
Our guest speaker, Dr. Jannetta Steyn, will discuss Carpentries Offline and the impact of the community’s work in this area.
More about the talk
CarpentriesOffline addresses the challenges of conducting Carpentries workshops in environments with unreliable or no Internet access. Initially, the solution involved using a Raspberry Pi to create a local Wi-Fi network and web server, enabling students and instructors to download all necessary software, learning materials, and services for a workshop. However, the project has since expanded to include additional tools. Alongside the ongoing development of the Raspberry Pi solution, we have introduced a Python package that allows for the download of all required resources to any computer. Additionally, we are developing a mini High-Performance Computer (HPC) using Raspberry Pis to facilitate training without access to a large HPC. While building and running such a mini HPC might seem daunting, our goal is to make the solution accessible, easy to understand, and maintainable for all Carpentries instructors. This talk will delve into the different components of CarpentriesOffline and demonstrate how the project can benefit instructors. I hope to inspire some attendees to join us in developing these valuable tools.
Join us on the day to learn more about this initiative.
Speaker's bio
Jannetta is a Senior Research Software Engineer at Newcastle University and Head of Training and Community. In 2022, Jannetta was awarded a fellowship by the Software Sustainability Institute to develop CarpentriesOffline which focuses on delivering Carpentries workshops when there is unreliable or no Internet. Originally from South Africa where, after school, she went to North West University (Potchefstroom) to study a BA in African Languages and Sociology. She did a post-graduate diploma in Education but then decided to join the military. That lasted two years and then she tried her hand at teaching at a technical college, which also only lasted two years. During her last year at university she started teaching herself programming and so she decided that perhaps programming computers might suit her better - which it apparently did. In the meantime she started a diploma in data metrics with computer science at UNISA. She found a job programming for the financial markets. In 1996 she immigrated to England where she worked as a developer and team lead on a project developing the software engine that was used to implement the world's first online lottery. Next it was time to have two children while keeping a finger on tech by doing website development and offline data backups for companies. Just in case these things were not going to keep her busy enough she enrolled for a correspondence Masters in computing with the Open University (UK). She then returned to full time work at a college looking after their VLE and websites. After another two years it was time for a new challenge and she started at a company developing software for highway maintenance. Always longing to go back to university, when the opportunity presented itself, Jannetta received a scholarship to enrol fulltime for an MSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology and thereafter a PhD in Computational Neuroscience (both at Newcastle University, UK). Since 2015 Jannetta has worked at Newcastle University, first as a Bioinformatician, then a post-doc and since 2019 as a Research Software Engineer. As of August this year (2024) she is Head of Training and Community, a position associated with a new High Performance Computer that is being acquired by Newcastle University. Any time left over in the day, she spends playing with electronics, Raspberry Pis, 3D printing and painting models.
Instructions for Sign Up
We are using CodiMD to capture details for this call.
On the sign up page, click on the edit button at the top left to toggle and enter edit mode. Once you've entered the edit mode, you should be able to see the "sign up" section. If you have trouble accessing the link or signing up, please reach out to us at training@nesi.org.nz
