HEPCon – A Cross-Platform Mobile Application for HEP Events

Abstract

Collaboration in research is essential for saving time and money. The field of high-energy physics (HEP) is no different. The higher level of collaboration the stronger the community. The HEP field encourages organizing various events in format and size such as meetings, workshops and conferences. Making attending a HEP event easier leverages cooperation and dialogue and this is what makes Indico service defacto a community standard. The paper describes HEPCon, a cross-platform mobile application which collects all information available on Indico and makes it available on a portable device. It keeps most of the data locally which speeds up the interaction. HEP-Con uses a shared code base which allows easy multiplatform development and support. There are iOS and Android implementations available for free download. The project is based on C# and we use the Xamarin mobile app technology for building native iOS and Android apps. SQLite database is responsible for retrieving and storing conference data. The app can be used to preview data from past CHEP conferences but the tool is implemented generic enough to support other Indico events.