OpenMRS Worldwide Summit 2015

In December last year I was lucky enough to attend the very first annual OpenMRS World Summit in Singapore. The summit was held at Singapore Management University (SMU), which has some of the best conference facilities I’ve experienced and is situated in an incredibly convenient location.

There were two days of tutorials before the main conference started, some of which I lead. Tutorial topics included Health IT & OpenMRS: An Introduction, AngularJS & REST Web Services 101, Extending & Customizing OpenMRS, Concept Management and Getting Data Out. I was in Singapore as an OpenMRS volunteer, so I also helped with various logistical issues such as participant registration and setup and tear down of the meeting rooms.

The summit was run in the typical unconference style, in which particpants set the session topics. There was a mixture of session types such as birds of a feather, fishbowl, lightning talks and plenary.

There was a strong focus on governance at this meeting, which really is necessary for building an effective and sustainable community. Some of the sessions that dealt with governance and strategy related topics were Governance for the Future, OpenMRS Strategy 2016 and individual strategy session for each strategic objective defined in the governance document.

I really enjoyed Joaquín and Jordan’s session on cloud computing for OpenMRS data analytics, my session on OpenMRS Local Communtities (it’s always great to get feedback and new input) and the session on Clinical Decision Support.

Apart from all the great sessions, there were also activities planned for every evening such as visits to Chinatown, Little India, Gardens By The Bay, Labrador Nature Reserve and Clark Quay. During these activities it was great to meet lots of community members I had never met in person before and to catch up with some I hadn’t seen in a while.

Overall it was an amazing experience and I would like to say a huge thank you to Michael for planning and running an exceptional event and to the OpenMRS leadership for providing the funding that enabled me to attend.