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Opening Night at ESOF 2012
The first day of ESOF 2012 began with a welcome reception followed by the opening ceremony in The Auditorium at the Convention Centre in Dublin. President Michael D Higgins gave a poetic speech which had the audience enthralled.
This was followed by the eloquent Professor Patrick Cunningham, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government and our Galwegian Gaelgóir in Europe, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan–Quinn. The Euroscience President, Enric Banda, said a few words before there was an unexpected entertaining interlude, involving lots of traditional Irish music & dancing by Rhythm Corporation.
The Government were also represented by Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Seán Sherlock,Minister of State, Department of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation and Department of Education & Skills with responsibility for Research & Innovation.
Master of ceremonies, Dara O’Briain, was his usual wonderful witty self, encouraging visits to Irish pubs and vast consumption of Guinness by the visitors to help keep the economy afloat.
The charming Professor Luke O’Neill from Trinity College gave a warm introduction to the first keynote speaker, Nobel Laureate 2011 Professor Jules Hoffmann. His keynote address was entitled “From insects to mammals: reflections on a European journey through basic research on immune defences”.
There are many brilliant blogs worth checking out including The Frog Blog.
City of Science Festival gets underway in Dublin
City of Science Festival gets underway RTÉ News. Check out the The Frog Blog for a summary
of events or the Dublin City of Science website.
SCIENTIX
SCIENTIX – the community for science education in Europe – was created to facilitate regular dissemination and sharing of know-how and best practices in science education across the European Union. Check out the New SCIENTIX blog page!
Google Code-in
Google Code-in is a global online contest introducing 13-17 year olds students to open source software development. It is a great way for students to gain real world experience working on an open source project and gain confidence in their skills while having mentors available to help guide them through the contest. Contest launches on Monday 7th December.
Some of the organizations creating tasks for students to work on in the contest include OpenMRS (medical records systems for developing countries), Systers (community dedicated to getting more women involved in CS), Wikimedia, RTEMS (operating system used in satellites, medical devices robots) and 10 other open source organizations dedicated to introducing young minds to open source development.
The contest will start for students on Monday, December 7th. Students complete tasks of their choosing in the following categories: coding, documentation, UI, outreach, quality assurance, training and research. Prizes include digital certificates, t-shirts, hoodies, and 28 grand prize winners will win a trip to Google headquarters in California, USA next June for themselves and a parent or legal guardian.
You can learn more about the details of the contest on our blog post: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2015/11/introducing-google-code-in-2015.html and the contest site g.co/codein.
Over the last 5 years we have had 2233 students from 87 countries complete tasks in the contest.
Sea for Society
Sea for Society aims to bring about an increase in public awareness around the issue of maintaining a sustainable marine ecosystem. There will be an evening of talks in the Science Gallery Dublin at 6pm Tuesday 16th July. FREE event but registration is required.
To register, please email SeaforSocietyBlueTalks@aquatt.ie
For more information, please visit the official project website www.seaforsociety.eu and our Irish blog www.seaforsociety-ireland.blogspot.ie. You can also follow our Twitter feed @SeaforSocietyIE to receive updates on our activities.