Join the YES Africa 2011 Online Chat about Resources for Early-Career Geoscientists

12 Jan 2011: Do you have ideas on how the YES Network can help develop tools to help early career geoscientists (YOU!) in their careers? Join us NOW on our skype chat - add YESNetworkRT2 to your skype contacts. We'll be discussing this until 16:00 GMT today. See you online!

CAG23

Happy New Year from Johannesburg, South Africa where we've just started the Colloquium of African Geology! Even though this is the 23rd CAG, this is only the 5th hosted in Africa and the first in South Africa. The CAG is the biennial meeting of the Geological Society of Africa. This year there are some 500 participants from 56 countries. South Africa is excited to kick off a decade of earth science including the IGC in 2016.

At the opening ceremony which was held at the University of Johannesburg's newly renovated Soweto Campus, we heard an excellent welcoming address from the South African Minister of Science and Technology, Ms. Naledi Pandor. She spoke at length about the different kinds of geological wealth in South Africa, including the Cradle of Humanity World Heritage Site, and asked the good question ' With all this wealth, why aren't we wealthy?' She talked about the need for geoscience to become a 'strategic science' for development both through supporting 'innovation and knowledge generation' and by making it a science for the public. It was an inspirational talk and a challenge for all young geoscientists to rise to a more dynamic and socially relevant future.

I attended a number of fascinating talks today during the scientific sessions on paleontology, anthropology and paleoclimatology in Africa - and the connections between all three from isotopes to bones to agricultural practice to landscape evolution! These presentations were part of a tribute to Prodessor P.V. Tobias who gave a closing plenary talk on the history of his career as an anthropologist working on human evolution, which managed to turn into a challenge for interdisciplinary curiousity-driven future research.

Fingers crossed we've worked out the bugs for the virtual components of the YES Africa Symposium tomorrow (the Minister and the President of the Geological Society of Africa both complimented us on this effort). Looking forward to meeting all virtual speakers and participants - as well as those in the room!

YES Africa 2011 - Free Registration for Web-based Participants

Register today to be a web-based participant in the YES Africa 2011 Symposium.
Listen to the Opening Ceremony, Oral Presentations, and Roundtable Presentations. Take part in the virtual working group discussions as a web-based roundtable participant. Web-based participation is free!

Virtual Registration for YES Africa 2011 Roundtables Now Open

If you are unable to attend the YES Africa 2011 Symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa this coming January, you will still be able to participate in the meeting!

On 12 January 2011, there will be two roundtable sessions that will be broadcasted in real-time over the web. Web-based ("virtual") participants are required to pre-register for the roundtable sessions.

Each roundtable session will have an web-based working group that will occur concurrently with the working group discussions at the symposium. The web-based working groups will be run via Skype. As part of the registration process, web-based participants will be have the opportunity to specify if they wish to participate in the web-based working group for each roundtable session.

Roundtable 1:

Natural Hazards in Africa: Climate change, earthquakes, landslides, hydrological hazards, etc.

This roundtable session will review current natural hazards that are occurring in the African continent, for example earthquakes (e.g. active East African rift), landslides, floods and drought etc. The roundtable discussion will focus on the different approaches of identifying natural hazards, risk assessment, risk mitigation and the role of the earth scientists and government/ policy makers with regard to natural hazards. What is the role of the government with regard to natural hazards, and how can young earth scientist approach government/ policy makers with regard to these natural hazards?

Roundtable 2:

Creating Local and Regional Professional Development Resources for Young and Early-Career Geoscientists

This roundtable session explores the current programs and initiatives that provide professional development resources for young and early-career geoscientists within Africa. This session will determine how these resources can be increased in order to make them available to a greater number of young and early-career geoscientists, both on a regional and local level. Issues to be explored in this session include: Job availability, preparedness of geoscience graduates, availability local and regional infrastructure to support professional development resources (schools, programs, internet accessibility), and retention of geoscience graduates. Strategies for how the YES Network and YES Network National Chapters can develop and disseminate these professional development resources will also be proposed.

For more information about the YES Africa 2011 Symposium, the roundtables, and registration details, please visit: http://www.networkyes.org/index.php/meetings/yes_africa_2011/