APEC 2020, scheduled to begin next week in New Orleans, CWIEME Berlin and CEFC 2020 in Italy are the latest magnetics events to fall victim to concerns surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak.
This morning, APEC organizers pulled the plug and indicated they are planning a virtual conference instead. “In light of growing concerns surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, and after much thoughtful deliberation, APEC and its sponsors, IEEE IAS, IEEE PELS, and PSMA have decided not to move forward with the in-person conference event scheduled for March 15- 19 in New Orleans,” they said. “In making this difficult decision, paramount is the health, safety, and welfare of our community. We acknowledge that the increase in corporate and institutionally-mandated travel restrictions make it impossible to ensure the execution of a quality conference and on-site experience for our APEC community and valued exhibitors.”
“Planning is already underway to assemble and deploy a virtual conference experience in the near future to preserve value for attendees, speakers, and exhibitors. Peer reviewed papers accepted by the conference will still be submitted to IEEE Xplore. APEC wishes to offer sincere thanks to its loyal exhibitors, sponsors, partners, and attendees for their patience and understanding as we move forward together.” For continuing updates, see www.apec-conf.org.
CWIEME Berlin is rescheduling to June 30 through July 2, from its original dates of May 26-28. “This decision has been taken in consideration of the recent spread of the virus, as well as the impact of current travel restrictions,” said show officials. “We believe that the new dates will enable sufficient time for the situation to improve and for the event to therefore run successfully for all involved.
All stand bookings and visitor registrations will be transferred to the new dates.” See https://www.coilwindingexpo.com/berlin for more info.
From Italy, currently on nationwide lockdown, came word that CEFC is postponing for six months and will now be held in November instead of April. “IEEE and the CEFC 2020 organizing committee, have been monitoring the developing Coronavirus COVID-2019: the safety and well-being of all conference participants is our priority. Tuscany is still an area in which there is basically no infection, but the situation is rapidly evolving both in Italy and in the rest of the world. The new regulations that the Italian Government is going to issue forbids conventions, cultural and sport events in the whole country for 30 days. After this period a new evaluation will be done to verify whether extending this action or not,” said the organizers.
The biennial Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation, originally scheduled for April 19-24 in the historical city of Pisa, is now set for the same venue on November 16-19. “We ensure you that all the hours spent by everyone involved (reviewers, track chairs, committees, authors) will be treasured and used for CEFC 2020 in November: this month is a usual time for CEFC, and we truly hope that we will all be participating to an outstanding event.” Further details about this change of dates can be learned by contacting this email address: skip_covid@cefc2020.org.
