Digital Science Retreat In Boston 2015: Snow, Sailing and Science

Each year in March everyone at Digital Science and our portfolio companies come together in one location for a company-wide retreat. The retreat is a mix of fun and hard work, and this year we all met up in Boston. Ultimately, it’s an opportunity for everyone in the company to learn what their counterparts are working on across the globe. This year was extra special as it was the last retreat for Timo Hannay, our former Managing Director. We’ve made sure that Timo’s thoughts on his final retreat have been captured on camera – we hope you enjoy.

Amarjit Myers, one of the organisers of the event, explains:

“The annual Digital Science Retreat is a unique opportunity for our growing global team to gather in one place to share ideas and experiences. People come together from very different companies and disciplines to meet and learn from old and new colleagues, but also get an update on Digital Science priorities and strategy for the coming year. We alternate the location between the US and the UK.” 

The format of the retreat is an ‘unconference’ where everyone collaboratively decides on the topics they’d like to cover and discuss during multiple mini workshops. This year we also hosted an evening of demos during which our portfolio companies showed off the latest updates to their amazing products. There was a lot of fun along the way too with a pub quiz (trivia night for the Americans) and an evening where we put on our finest clothes to have dinner and drinks.

Being in Boston, we wanted to give our global counterparts a chance to really experience Boston in the spring. For the workshop day, we loaded all 100+ people onto a large boat and travelled to Thompson Island. Thompson Island is one of Boston’s many harbor islands that offers meeting space for companies, with beautiful views of the city. Even though Boston had just suffered one of its worst winters in history (a record breaking 108 inches – that’s over 2.5 meters of snow!), the sun peaked out long enough for us to host some of the workshops outside!

We were also fortunate enough to host some really interesting speakers, including HubSpot’s Ari Plaut and Dr. Beth Altringer from Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

The retreat is an invaluable event for Digital Science. It gives us the chance to reconnect, learn and take a step back from our daily tasks to re-focus on our mission. We are looking forward to next year’s in the UK!