English
Under the auspices of Dr. Ayman Ashour, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and Dr. Abdelaziz Konsowa, President of Alexandria University, Dr. Hisham Saeed, Vice President of the University for Postgraduate Studies and Research, inaugurated today, Saturday, May 18, 2024, the activities of the First International Conference on Advances in Science for Sustainable Development (ICASSD 2024), which is organized by the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research and continues for two days at the Institute’s headquarters.
The opening session was attended by Dr. Yousry El-Gamal, former Minister of Education, Dr. Ahmed Abdelrehim, Acting Dean of the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, and a group of deans and vice deans of Alexandria University’s faculties and institutes, faculty members, researchers, industry representatives, and students.
In his speech, Dr. Hisham Saeed stressed that the conference aims to harness science and technology to confront the challenges facing our world today. Dr. Saeed stressed that successive scientific developments have begun to play a pivotal role in finding solutions to pressing issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and environmental degradation. He added that science must be utilised in order to achieve sustainable development, from renewable energy technologies and sustainable smart agriculture practices to great achievements in preserving the environment and resilient infrastructure. He pointed out that we must harness scientific disciplines from biology and chemistry to engineering and social sciences to develop comprehensive solutions that work to find a balance between environmental safety, economic welfare and social justice. He added that cooperation between different disciplines has become necessary in addressing complex sustainability challenges, through strengthening partnerships between scientists, policy makers, and civil society. At the end of his speech, Dr. Hisham Saeed called on all attending researchers and students to benefit from the activities The conference is to exchange knowledge among themselves to serve sustainable development, especially since the conference witnesses the presence of many scientists and researchers around the world.
While Dr. Yousry El-Gamal confirmed that the conference discusses the topical issue of harnessing science in the service of sustainable development, which is one of the most important pillars of the Egyptian State Strategy 2030. He pointed out that Alexandria University is a pioneer in organizing unique conferences, being also a pioneer in establishing a Department of Nuclear Engineering and a Department of Computer Engineering to create inter-disciplinary and unique specializations that are consistent with the goals of sustainable development. Dr. El-Gamal expressed his hopes that the conference comes up with recommendations that serve the goals of sustainable development and create a more sustainable world.
Dr. Ahmed Abdelrehim indicated that the conference aims to identify and promote concrete opportunities and partnerships that would benefit from science and the community to accelerate progress in the main areas of the 2030 Plan by bringing together policy makers, researchers and academics. It also aims to enhance dialogue, exchange best practices, and develop implementable strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. He added that despite the great scientific support for the Sustainable Development Goals, progress has been slow. Hence, the conference was organized to bridge this gap, promote the optimal use of science, technology, and innovation, and adopt a qualitative shift in the way we conduct scientific research for the sake of sustainability and moving away from traditional, isolated and competitive models, prioritizing the generation of applicable knowledge that leads to tangible scientific results.
Three sessions were held today. The first session included a talk about “Developments in Science through Modern trends in Scientific Research and their Applications,” and was chaired by Dr. Mustafa Hassan Mustafa, Professor of Biochemistry and Partial Carcinogenicity, and the second session was entitled “Applications of Biotechnology and Its Impact on Sustainable Development,” and was chaired by Dr. Sherif Hassan Qandil, Professor in the Department of Materials Science, while the third session was entitled “The Effects of Nanotechnology on Modern Science and Extending Them to Sustainable Development Applications.”
