The 2022 IEEE European School of Information Theory (ESIT) was held July 4-7, 2022, at Technische Universität (TU) Wien in Vienna, Austria, and was hosted by the Institute of Telecommunications. The school returned to an on-site format (after the previous virtual school due to COVID-19) to take full advantage of the community experience through on-site plenary lectures and online tutorials, interactive poster sessions for participants, and social events in scenic Vienna. With about 50 participants, a reluctance to travel because of COVID was still noticeable, especially since COVID numbers were on the rise again all over Europe in early summer. Nonetheless, the social and personal interaction during school was fabulous (and no COVID cases had to be recorded)!
The school featured five outstanding on-site tutorials at our venue in TU Wien:
- Pablo Piantanida (CentraleSupelec) - Trustworthy Machine Learning, Uncertainty and Information
- Elisabeth Gassiat (University Paris-Sud) - Flexible Learning using Hidden Markov Models
- Daniela Tuninetti (University of Illinois Chicago) - On Coded Caching (in Various Flavors)
- Robert Fischer (University of Ulm) - Lattice-Reduction-Aided and Integer-Forcing Equalization for MIMO Communications
- Erwin Riegler (ETH Zürich) - Lossy Compression of General Random Variables
Our presenters were on-site for the duration of the school to discuss and network with our participants during social events and poster sessions.
The on-site talks were complemented by two live online tutorials from renowned speakers:
- Tara Javidi (University of California San Diego) - Black-box Optimization in Theory and in Practice
- Marco Di Renzo (CentraleSupelec) - Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Wireless Communications
These online tutorials were streamed live to our venue, and school participants had the opportunity to engage in moderated virtual Q&A sessions with the presenters.
The school also included a student poster session with preceding short pitch presentations by school participants to promote their work. Both students and lecturers equally enjoyed the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas in a real-world setting, so much so that we almost missed our ride on a vintage streetcar to the school's dinner at Vienna’s oldest wine tavern.
Overall, the event was a great success with a week full of exciting presentations and personal contacts. We would like to sincerely thank all the speakers for their contributions and dedication to making the school a wonderful educational experience for all participants, and we are grateful to the IEEE Information Theory Society for their generous support.