Attending the SSTD '07 conference in Boston as a student to present a paper was easily one of the most outstanding experiences during my PhD years. To present a paper to an audience that consisted of most pioneers in the area of spatial databases was an invaluable experience. The encouragement and the feedback I received from the experts in Spatial databases helped me define my research problem more clearly and sharpen the focus of my research. The conference provided me with ample opportunities for one-on-one discussions with well-known researchers, who have done path-breaking research in the area of Spatial network databases, which was the focus of my PhD thesis. The relatively smaller size of the conference (around 250 attendees) made these interactions possible and easy. The extremely valuable discussions I had with Prof Guting, who pioneered the research in Graph databases still stand out in my memory. The conference also provided opportunities to meet members from organizations such as ESRI and Oracle Corporation who work in the real world implementations of Spatial databases. It was extremely motivating to discuss and learn about the applications of the research I was involved in and these discussions definitely played a great role in my evaluation of various career choices after my graduation.
Betsy George, Oracle Spatial
Edit: Typo in SSTD year.
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Well, the SSTD '09 took place in Aalborg, Denmark :-)
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