More than 300 researchers, science policy officials and educators from the developing world – including several top-ranking science officials – convened for the 24th General Meeting of The World Academy of Sciences in 2013. The meeting, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was a celebration of TWAS's 30th anniversary, and it explored new research and compelling challenges in science and engineering. Discussions ranged across the fields of science and engineering: Innovation in Latin America. Cancer research in Africa. Neuroscience. Biotechnology for agriculture. The social science of poverty. Science communication.
The meeting was co-organized and supported Lino Barañao, minister of Argentina's Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva [1], and the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, or CONICET [2]. Key support came from TWAS Vice President Francisco Barrantes [3], a neuroscientist with the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. The event featured the first-ever TWAS-Lenovo Science Prize [4], awarded to pioneering Chilean physicist Claudio Bunster, as well as 12 TWAS Prizes for Scientific Excellence [5]. Special awards for services to TWAS [6] were given to Immacolata Pannone, a scientific expert with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Fu Shuqin, director of the TWAS Regional Office for East & Southeast Asia and a longtime TWAS leader in China.
The Academy also elected 52 new fellows [7] and premiered its new documentary, "Seeds of Science [8]", about how scientists associated with TWAS are transforming agriculture in Kenya.
Photos from the meeting are available on Flickr. [9]