The network wide training nwt 9, Manifolds and Geometric Integration Colloquia (MaGIC), took place during the first week of March 2021. Unfortunately, for most people it was not possible to join it in Norway, but it still was a very interesting training. Throughout the 3 days of talks, we had the possibility of learning about many different topics, coming from quite disparate research areas, mainly related to numerical analysis and industrial applications.

The training was physically held in Ilsetra, Øyer, Norway, but, because of the pandemic, most of the participants have not been able to reach Norway. To try to enjoy a similar environment of previous MaGIC editions, in 7 we were able to move to Ilsetra and attend the various seminars from a rented apartment, where we stayed for all the 4 days.

We all sat in the living room, watching the seminars in a big screen, and when one of us had to give a talk, he or she moved to the kitchen table. There were some funny situations with echo and audio on zoom, but it was nice to be altogether after quite long time. Many other participants joined us online, which is clearly not as being here in Ilsetra, but even thanks to the many photos shared during the training, it was still a great experience.

The organisation of the training was based on two blocks of talks every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. These blocks were separated by a quite long and super enjoyable break (at least for me and the others here in Ilsetra) where we tried to do, for the first time, cross-country skiing. As far as I can see from the photos shared by the other participants, I think we have not been the only ones having fun and doing sports in this break.

The talks, usually 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, were on many different topics. Some of them were related to industrial and engineering applications and some others more in the area of numerical analysis. Many of the speakers, including me, had never done a talk of this kind before, so this has been a really important and useful experience to practice and present some of the work done in the previous months.

Because of the large variety of the topics touched by the talks, it was quite hard to follow the details of all of them. However, I think it has been quite important to try to follow most of them, grasping at least some key points and connecting with other PhD students and professors related, in some way, to the THREAD Project.

Even if the tradition of the MaGIC conference is quite long, here in Norway, this has been my first time and I have to say that it is a great opportunity to meet new people working on similar problems as we are, to discuss about mathematics and applications and to enjoy some time together doing sports and having dinner. I have not attended many conferences of multiple days, but I can say that these few days have been a very nice way to understand new things, think about possible future research directions and have fun. I hope that the next year it will be possible to be altogether in Norway for the new edition of MaGIC, and that even who attended this one on Zoom has had a positive feedback about the conference. For other photos, you can see the collected ones here.

Thank you for reading,
Davide Murari (NTNU)