One of the main objectives of the Complexity Science Summer School is creating a professional network between the participants. And I must say that first contacts look very promising. I am looking forward to spend the next three weeks with, to name a few, following people:
Thomas is French, does his PhD in Zurich, where he focuses on risks in cyberspace. His PhD supervisor is an authority in systemic risks.
Roberta is Italian, has a degree in physics, and is i2nd year PhD, researching the way information flows in complex networks.
Massimilian is working for a large Italian telecom operator, that is part of the Santa Fe business network. He focuses on internet media and digital communication..
Grifffith is American, but works since several years in Oxford, focusing on sociology and networks.
Vanessa works in Venezuela and is specialized in ecology and climate change.
Ranjani and Zoe work for one of the Santa Fe business partners, in the domain of, a.o. artificial intelligence, complex systems and agent based modeling.
Tom works for the US Government and is, a.o., specialized in game theory
Giovanni works in London as a PhD student at the Centre for Transport studies and is in the University Complexity and Networks group
Furthermore our day was blessed with 5 ( :-$ ) lectures:
Liz Bradley disclosed the details of bifurcation, the constant of Feigenbaum, the characteristics of fractals, attractors and the lyapunov exponent. These terms may sound marsian, but some discussion clarified possible use in business context.
Peter Dodds, good for two lectures, introduced us to the "Science of Networks". This field has attracted many researchers of which many physicists in the nineties of the previous century. Most known researchers is Albert- Laszlo Barabasi, who introduced the concept of "scale free" network. Since then, many concepts and methods have been developed to analyse the data created by complex networks, amongst others, social networks.
Iain Couzin transposed his biological models on collective behavior, to the social and business environment
Finally, Tom Carter gave a wonderful demo of several agent based models (ABM), using Netlogo, one of the dominatnt ABM tools
Luckily, Santa Fe is situated approximately 2000 meters above sea level. This way, at night, temperature in our dormitories – no airco – drops at a feasible level, giving way for a refreshing night.