Walloon-Brabant's Félix Gaudin gave a "Lightning Talk" on June 6 at TNC23, the largest networking event in R&E, organized by GÉANT. He was the only Belgian chosen for this after a selection process. Félix and his project on latency or the increase of latency were nominated and accompanied by Belnet, which as a Belgian NREN also participated in the conference.
During the five-day conference, a selection of young talents from different countries were given the opportunity to give a Lightning Talk: an extraordinary opportunity to present their project or idea to an internationally renowned audience. Félix Gaudin, who studies computer sciences at UCLouvain, seized the chance to talk about his master's thesis on an open-source tool allowing users to measure latency more precisely and efficiently.
Félix Gaudin: “During the Covid crisis I noticed how my courses via Microsoft Teams often had such poor video/audio quality. And yet none of the speed tests I ran showed any abnormality, because they only measure ‘idle latency’ (latency with no network load), which doesn’t take into account the traffic from other apps and people on your network. So I needed a way to measure ‘working latency’. Currently a new measurement technique to measure latency under working conditions, called RPM, is being developed. And my goal is to implement this in a browser, allowing every user to know why their internet connection is poor.”
Wonderful opportunity
Dirk Haex, general director a.i. at Belnet:“This project matches our mission as National Research & Education Network. Among other things, we provide connectivity to numerous Belgian research, education and government institutions so that they can perform their vital tasks for society. So we’re very interested in what Félix is working on, and apart from that we enjoy giving young Belgian IT talent a boost
. So it was with great pleasure that we nominated and supported Félix, and we are very happy that he got this wonderful opportunity to present his idea on the highest international R&E level."
The Future Talent Programme is an initiative by GÉANT and exists to introduce young talent to the GÉANT community and vice versa. The Future Talent Programme includes skills development training, such as public speaking and presentation training, and provides opportunities to meet and engage with experts in different fields.
"I was very impressed with the conference and the professional organization," concludes Félix. "We were really taken care of and I met a lot of people in the European NREN community. Thanks to everyone, and especially Belnet, who helped me get this opportunity." "I was very impressed with the conference and the professional organization," concludes Félix. "We were really taken care of and I met a lot of people in the European NREN community. Thanks to everyone, and especially Belnet, who helped me get this opportunity."