The Säntis System Summit in Summer 2019

I must admit that I more or less stumbled into this wonderful event by chance. Not knowing what to expect exactly from the online presentation I was totally overwhelmed by the positive experience in the end. Not only provided the location at mountain Säntis in Appenzell a breathtaking scenery and the hotel was great, but, most of all, amongst all organizers and participants there was an enthusiastic, open-minded and relaxing atmosphere that made this (un)conference special to me.

Also very refreshing was the concept of the conference: The organizers decided not to enforce a pre-defined schedule of talks and presentations but to encourage everyone to participate in assembling a schedule of discussion rounds about desired topics ad-hoc. This turned out to be, at least to me, a very dynamic and inspiring solution. I had some interesting discussions about the Genode framework, Sculpt and my recent work with Ada and SPARK but also about cryptographics.

On top of that, we had a fascinating trip to the windy summit of mount Säntis were a surprise tour through the inner workings of the Säntis transmission tower and weather station waited for us. I definitely hope for a successor of this gathering and, so far, like to thank all those guys who made this happen!