Attending the 19th IEEE ICCA in Tallinn, Estonia, plus Germany!
Written 2025-07-16
I recently had the honour of presenting a paper based on my thesis work at the 19th IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation in Tallinn, Estonia. The conference was jointly organized by the IEEE Singapore Control Systems Chapter and the Hong Kong Centre for Logistics Robotics, and received 199 submissions from researchers in 35 countries. I presented Detecting and Resolving Feature Interactions in Cyber-Physical Systems Using Formal Methods, which I co-authored with my thesis supervisor and our colleague at the University of Rennes, where we present an application of supervisory control theory to cybersecurity in smart homes.
The conference was held at the historic Hotel Viru, Estonia's first high-rise building, which was built by the Soviet government tourist agency Intourist (Интурист) in 1972 and had a strong KGB presence until Estonia gained independence in 1991. When the agents returned to Russia, they left behind all of their eavesdropping equipment on the hotel's secret top floor, which is now a museum. The hotel was just across the street from the gates of Old Tallinn, one of Europe's best-preserved medieval cities, which I spent all of my down time exploring. Perhaps my favourite sight in Tallinn was St. Nicholas Church (Niguliste Kirik), where I was able to see the Danse Macabre by Bernt Notke (late 15th century), which has always been my favourite piece of medieval art, in-person.
After the conference wrapped up on July 3rd, I spent about a week and a half in Germany visiting two very good friends who live there. I flew from Tallinn to Frankfurt, and took the train to Landau in der Pfalz, where I stayed for five days. Then I took the train to Nuremberg, where I stayed for a night, and then continued on to Berlin, where I stayed for three days before flying home. I'm very thankful to my friends for their hospitality, and I got to catch up with them as they showed me around! As a bonus, I finally got to use my German, which I've been learning as a hobby for more than five years! Plus, while in Berlin, I got to see the "set theory clock" (Mengenlehreuhr), which I've wanted to see for a long time.
In total, I spent 17 days abroad and travelled through eight airports (YQM, YUL, AMS, TLL, FRA, BER, WAW, YYZ) in five countries (Canada, Netherlands, Estonia, Germany, Poland) on four airlines (Air Canada, airBaltic, Lufthansa, LOT Polish Airlines), and spent roughly 27 hours in flight. I got to use almost every form of transportation in Germany, including trains (Intercity Express, Intercity, Regional-Express, Regionalbahn, S-Bahn, U-Bahn), buses, trams, and the Autobahn. I had a wonderful time! I took over 1,600 photos, but in the interest of saving bandwidth I only put a few in the gallery above.