Promoting science: Scientists share knowledge with students, researchers

KARACHI: More than 740 scientists, including 150 foreign researchers from 45 countries of the world, are participating in the four-day-long 14th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences (EuAsC2S-14) that was inaugurated at Karachi University on Thursday.

The international conference has been organised by the university’s HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS). The mega-event is one of the biggest science conferences that have been held in Pakistan in recent years. Pakistan is going through a historic time, when the country is working along with China on various mega-projects such as CPEC, said former federal minister and former HEC chairperson Prof Dr Attaur Rahman.

ICCBS director Prof Iqbal Choudhary said that Pakistan is home to ancient civilisations and has seven of the 12 highest mountain peaks in the world. “Pakistan is the wealthiest country in terms of having enormous natural resources,” he said.

Turkish scholar Prof Bilge Sener, who is the vice-chairperson of 14th Eurasia Conference, said it is necessary to train young scholars in Pakistan and promote science through such conferences. Jordanian professor Amal Al Aboudi read out the message of Eurasia Conference founding member from Austria, Prof B Michael Rode, who could not make it to the conference due to poor health. “This conference will give an opportunity to gain scientific knowledge and will help build up contact with the scientific world,” she said, while reading Rode’s message.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2016.