HI!
For me, it was the first NIME, and I felt quite included and welcomed in the discussion. So thank you everyone for making myself feeling included.
In my personal NIME 2020 experience, the workshops and the poster sessions were specifically important to get to know people and to introduce myself. In these moments, I could really get to talk with people.
To create other possibilities to allow newcomers (like I am) to get to know the community and introduce themselves more, I would sugget having some discussion moments. These could be one or two slots during the conference just for discussion that may be organized around specific topics. I think that in this way, it could be possible to create subgroups of discussion where it is easier to get to know people.
This is just an idea based on my personal experience as a newcomer, but I hope this could help to develop the discussion about a virtual NIME.