About the Marktoberdorf Summer School
The Marktoberdorf summer school (also known as a NATO ASI) is a prestigious one that has been historically supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program, thus, there were certain constraints for attendees, as a result it may not have become as famous as it could have over the years (this year's school was supported by fortiss and AWS). In the past, many experts and world-changing scientists have attended the school and they are well known (or impactful). The summer school has been held in Germany and hosted by different academics throughout the years.
Getting there
When going to the airport to take the flight to Germany, the airline support service told me that I could not travel due to issues on their end, however, immediately after that, they said to me to "Go back home". I said no, I stayed for a couple of hours and then I emailed the organisers of Marktoberdorf; the response was then forwarded to the German Border Police, after which the airline could not override their decision and they let me board the aeroplane. Due to the issues with the airline, there was a change of flight and an additional waiting time of 12 hours!
After arriving in Germany, I took the train to go to the summer school; surprisingly there were no charging ports near the seats of the train that I had taken. At the final stop I decided to order a taxi, the time was around 23:20. There was an acceptance of the proposed offer for the taxi, but they never showed up, as a result of the waiting, my phone shut down.
I was now left in this small town, with no internet access, no map and no communication; as a result I had to walk 50 minutes whilst dragging my suitcase to my intended final destination, however, there were no lights illuminating the path in this little town, though, the night was clear and there were many stars, more than I could count.
Surprisingly, at around midnight, there was a man who was walking his dog, he suffered from weak hearing so I was shouting English to this German man while doing my best to convey to him that I appreciate his help using all the hand signs I could think of (specifically the British Sign Language). I walked past the man and there were a few teenagers who were out on a walk, this time I asked the same question for the directions and their response was the exact same "Walk this way" as they pointed.
I kept walking the same path without knowing where my destination was located; finally after 45 minutes, I was nearing the outskirts of the town and there was a white car which drove by, I waved and they stopped, the passenger said "oh, it's only 100 metres away, would you like us to help?", "Yes" I said. The people of this little town I had stayed in, they were kind.
At Marktoberdorf
At the summer school, there were students who were doing their doctoral research as well as post-graduate students who were undertaking their master's, it was evident that we all shared the same interests, one experience that stands out the most is that all the students were open-minded, willing to consider different perspectives to different proposals. An observation of mine that stands out the most is that all the lecturers had a positive perception of the world, extremely motivated, passionate and interested in the work they were doing, such observation was reflected in their enthusiasm during their lectures as well as the regular conversations that we had taken part in over meals, activities and other encounters.
During the school, I was the first to give a student presentation on my doctoral work, Agentic MonoContext MDE, which is currently a context catalogue for Agentic-AI systems with the aim of constraining the actions an AI-agent takes based on specified properties by an operator.
I am as I write, still intrigued by the magnitude of collaboration between the different experts (and their groups) from all over the world, from a non-academic perspective such collaboration could have easily been perceived as competition, in this instance of participation, this was false.
The Lecturers
The following lecturers all presented to the participants. They greatly shaped the atmosphere at the school and presented on a wide array of different topics all with unique perspectives.
Alexander Pretschner (Technical University of Munich & fortiss)
Jean-Christophe Filliâtre (CNRS / Université Paris-Saclay)
Orna Grumberg (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology)
John Mitchell (Stanford University)
Peter Müller (ETH Zürich)
Sukyoung Ryu (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
Jasmin Blanchette (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Jonathan Protzenko (Google)
Leonardo de Moura (Amazon Web Services (AWS))
Mike Dodds (Galois, Inc.)