 I want to point out this news which was on our website in memoriam, so let me just read the news. The ICTP is deeply saddened to learn about the killing of professors Sufyan Tayyeh and his family in Gaza, which is a great tragedy. Tayyeh was a prominent researcher in theoretical physics and applied mathematics, and he was the president of the Islamic University of Gaza, the largest university in Gaza. He visited ICTP on a number of occasions in 2001 and again in 2004 as a fellow in our TRIAL program, and he was recently appointed as the UNESCO Chair for Astrophysical and Space Sciences in Palestine. And you know we live in this difficult and uncertain times. So after this news article was published, a number of people actually wrote to me and somebody pointed out that Professor Sufyan Tayyeh was in Gaza. Somebody pointed out that a colleague of mine from Princeton pointed out that Professor Grede school was also, and his wife, he was also a theoretical physicist, and they were killed in this attack in October 7. And Grede school had attended the advanced workshop on nonlinear photonics, disorder and wave turbulence, and he was also a theoretical physicist. And by a twist of fate, politically from the two sides, but physics wise, Grede schools and Tayyeh were both experts in light propagation in complex media. In the case of Grede school, it was disordered media, and in the case of Tayyeh, it was confined media. And then also there were 12 other academics who perished in this very terrible events that are unfolding. And ICTP decided to write this in memoriam because Tayyeh, not only he visited ICTP, a number of occasions and was a fellow. He was a mentor and inspiration to several researchers coming to ICTP. There are a number of young scientists from this region on our campus today. And they met with me a couple of weeks ago and they are of course in great distress with an uncertain future and no place to return to. So on behalf of the ICTP community, I would say I appeal to the international community to find an urgent resolution to this humanitarian crisis to ensure a long-term peace, security and justice for all citizens of the region. I would also say that one of the students, Wyatt, she had sent an email from the info point on November 20. She is raising humanitarian aid for the people in the region in Gaza. Myself and some of the colleagues have already contributed. So I appeal to you also, if you would like, just consult that email and you can make a contribution if you would like. I would like to emphasize here that ICTP has been playing an active role in promoting international understanding through science. And one of the shining examples of this is the synchrotron light for experimental science and applications in the Middle East, which is called the SESAME project. This is a synchrotron facility in Jordan and it is a joint project of many countries in the region. And it's a wonderful example of how it's almost like from an alternative universe, that it presents an alternative vision for the future for peaceful coexistence and cooperation because there, scientists from many countries come together and many countries contribute funds to this event. So I think I can only say that ICTP's role as a meeting point for scientists from around the globe who speak the same language of science is very important in their current times. As you know, we have been supporting scientists from many different parts of the world, whether it is Ukraine, from Russia, from Gaza, from Yemen, from Sudan, from Afghanistan. So I would like to emphasize that ICTP will continue to be a safe haven for scientists suffering from political strife or social upheavals. So I would suggest that maybe we observe a moment of silence, we can all stand up and observe a moment of silence. Now we can proceed with the long services award. Okay, so the first person is Karola. So Karola Bertolini, she's been here for 20 years. She started her career at ICTP on a temporary basis in 2003 in Operations Unit and her communications and language skills as well as ability to interact with different people, with different cultural backgrounds, very quickly made her a very valued member of the finance team and the point of reference for travels and missions of the long term visitors who very much appreciated her dedication and support. This is something that is written by your supervisors. I would like to present you with the Adelaide Lungu, 20 years. Adelaide joined ICTP in 2003 as a nurse and received a promotion in 2022. Her work has always been key to the medical services. She has provided medical and preventive healthcare advice to all the ICTP and to us community, often working outside regular hours to attend to the emergencies. And this I have seen during COVID time, which was particularly difficult time. She worked especially hard, yeah, it says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when external medical resources were scarce and colleagues were under a lot of stress. I mean, this, you know, we've almost forgotten that they was COVID, but it was a difficult time. And she admin, administrates and takes care of supplies, making sure of equipment is maintained on schedule and payments are done on time. So she's really the heart and soul of the medical services. Okay, then 25 years now, Johanna is Grassburger. So Johanna joined the scientific computer section in 1998 to provide support to users on scientific applications. More recently has been involved in the technical support for administrative users and the setup of computers in our offices. On many occasions, he became the face of the ICTS, always there whenever users, staff and visitors faced IT difficulties or challenges. And over the years, the entire ICTP community has enjoyed his patience, kindness and readiness to not only provide assistance but also going the extra mile if needed. And this I think I can also test to that. You know, I have been in many parts of the world and it's difficult to find IT people who are cheerful. Because everybody's coming to them with all kinds of questions and they're fed up with it. But this is not the case at ICTP. Okay, then, Titiana Botadze, 35 years, first read. So Titiana is the most senior staff member in the housing unit. She joined the section back in 1988 before joining ICTP. She was already working in reception when Adriyatiko Palace Hotel was a working hotel and only part of it was used for ICTP. Over the years, she has increased the responsibilities to make sure that all visitors are suitably accommodated. She's collaborative, works extremely hard and promotes a pleasant and coordinated environment, both in her office as well as many other offices, ensuring the effective running of the housing services. I don't know, I sometimes stay at the guest house and I always receive it from you. Okay, Nikoletta Ivani Sevich, also 35 years. So we have two people from finance. Nikoletta joined the finance section at ICTP in 1988, dealing with the finance and administration of the Trill Program. In close collaboration with the late founder of the program, Professor Giuseppe Furlan. After a short assignment in the operations unit, she was appointed as a conference clerk within the condensed matter and statistical physics section and then a conference support services afterwards. So she is now working with the science, technology and innovation unit. So visitors don't just remember her, they remember the feeling of being cared for and being valued. Her kindness is in the ways she greets every visitor where she goes to the extra mile to ensure everyone feels looked after during the period of this day at ICTP. So thank you. Thank you. Well, I asked if I could share a couple of thoughts very shortly. I'm not used to public talking. I didn't write anything, so bear with me. So, two things. I wanted to express my gratitude to ICTP for all these years. These years which have seen me grown up, really, because I was a kid, practically. Don't think that all despite of the 35 years of service, and of great errors, of course. Really, it contributed so much to my own education. With the example of strength towards international dialogue, incorporation. And education more in general. So values I totally share. So thank you. And then a very personal note. I recently had last week a loss in my family. And I wasn't sure I would have been able to come and stand, receive this award today. But this morning I woke up and said to myself, my mother was really so proud of my working here. So I thought, OK, I don't feel like personally being here in public. But I think this is for me. It's for her in memorial that I'm taking this. So thank you. Well, ICTP is like your family. So the last is Sabrina Byzantine, 35 years. So Sabrina joined ICTP in 1988 in the scientific computer section, which has now evolved into ICTS. In 1995, she was promoted to the position of UNIX Systems Network Assistant and more recently to the position of Senior Information Technology Assistant. She has always enjoyed technically assisting scientists in their research. And today she supervises the Scientific Activities Support Team, which provides video multimedia printing and booking services, as well as providing administrative support to ICTS and the MHPC program. And as you know, during COVID time, we really had to rely a lot on this online mode of functioning and the support from the ICTS team was very fundamental. So congratulations. Yeah, none of you look 35 years. That you have been here for 35 years. OK, now we have a surprise. There is somebody on our team who really doesn't like to be this put on the spot as the center of traction, that is Uli. We decided that we should surprise him so that he would not remain absent. So I think all of you, I mean, let me just say very briefly, Uli joined ICTP in June 2010 from IBM. Actually, he was at IBM as coordinator of the ICTS section. In 2013, he was the head of the ICTS section. And then he basically took over as the head of budget and finance and then eventually he was really taking all the responsibility of the senior operations officer. And in 2021, he was appointed as the senior operations officer. I would like to say that he has really rendered your men's service as the stealer service to ICTP also in very difficult times, especially during COVID, you have all been witness. And, you know, being a finance person is never easy because you get all the blame. It's easy, easier to be a director because and I think some of the more difficult decisions that he had to implement, he did it with great attention and great dedication. And I really want to thank Uli for this. I'm very happy that he will continue. He will come back after three months to take charge of this big renovation project that we have since we got the 10 million from the Italian government. I really need a capable person who will make sure that things get done and they get done in time and they get done properly. In fact, the Italian government ministry, when they visited, they were not sure whether they want to give this money, how it will be spent. But then when they met with Uli, they said, OK, it will be spent properly. So this is a little surprise gift and certificate for you. All I wanted to say is thank you. We had certain years together. It was a reasonable time. So we had all kinds of things, especially in the last years when everyone asked for more money. OK, and my reply was always the same. So I wanted to thank you, especially all of you for all the discussions we had and all your requests, and I guess I will miss my inbox. Yeah, we all know that Uli is a man of few words. OK, so I think the next now we can we have another very pleasant occasion. We'll be celebrating before we move on to the spirit of Salam Award. We will be celebrating two of our most senior and dear colleagues, Luciano Bartokhi and Eriyat Tazati, who were deputy directors and acting directors. So they have been really with ICTP for many years. So I would start out by saying happy birthday. It's a bit staggered. It's not exactly today, but I think when you are 80 or 90 years old, plus or minus 10 doesn't matter, right? Almost as long as my life. In fact, the largest part of my life has been spent in collaborating with the International Center for Theoretical Physics. Indeed, I have been in touch with the ICTP even before its official foundation. In fact, in the summer of 160, I was coming from the University of Bologna and during my military service, I did participate in a scientific meeting held in the Castelletto di Miramare. When Abdu Salam came for the first time to Trieste and met Paolo Boudini, the two founders of ICTP, and when the idea of the ICTP was first discussed. Later, in summer of 160, I took part to the first school in high-energy physics, which was held in the provisional ICTP seat in Piazzamir-Oberdan. This building was not yet existing. Then in two years, 65 to 67, I was at CERN as a CERN's fellow. And then at the end, I decided not to go back to my university, which was the University of Bologna, for a number of reasons. There were a few negative reasons, which I will not mention, of course, but there were at least two important positive reasons. One was that in the previous years, I had a very strong cooperation, scientific cooperation, with Pino Furtland. Pino Furtland is the person who has been the theoretical physicist of the highest international level in Trieste, and the second reason, of course, was the existence of the center. In the long period in which I was helping Salam in the running of the center, first as a head of training courses and scientific personnel, something that nobody ever understood the meaning of. Then as deputy director for a long period, I was able to appreciate this extraordinary character. He was a person with a very wide and deep knowledge in many areas of physics, not only energy physics. In fact, when he retired, our library inherited a very large number of books covering many areas. In fact, I also did inherit part of those books. He was typically reading those books early in the morning. He was typically coming at the ICTP around 8 a.m. but he was starting reading books at 5 o'clock in the morning. He was also a person with a very deep sense of humanity. To me, the most impressive aspect of his personality was his capacity of switching in real time from discussing some most advanced physics problems to solving some intricate administrative matters immediately in real time. For Salam, he was always repeating that the basis of success are first competence, but then second, dedication and hard work. Third, dedication and hard work. Fourth, again, dedication and hard work. One of the most important scientific aspects of ICTP I have learned from Salam has always been the very close cooperation with the Italian scientists and institutions. A first example was that since in the first decades of the ICTP existence, the center had very, very few permanent scientific staff. Therefore, the scientists from the Trieste University not only were collaborating with the ICTP in its original scientific areas, elementary particle and nuclear physics essentially only, but also started the expansion of ICTP programs in the areas of condensed matter physics and mathematics and later many other areas. But at least in that period, condensed matter physics and mathematics were the new areas. And the names to be mentioned here are Tosentosatti for condensed matter and Vido Sitz for mathematics. Another important example of collaboration with the Italian institution is TRIL, the program of training and research in Italian laboratories, which was launched in fact by Pino Fugliano, where many Italian laboratories started in that period hosting for extended period of time scientists coming mainly from developing countries, especially to conduct experimental research. And later I will mention another very important example of cooperation with the Italian institutions. Another lesson I learned from Salam is that ICTP can support financially new valuable scientific programs in their initial phases, but any new program should be successful only if it can attract later the necessary funds from external sources. One very important example which is very dear to me were the colleges of microprocessors. It was very funny that one day in the late 70s Salam called me and said there is this new technological tool, the microprocessor. I do not really understand what it is, but I know it will become very important. We should organize something in this area. Go to CERN and use your connections there. The lucky circumstance was that CERN itself was starting a training program in this area for their own scientists. We were able to convince the CERN management to organize the same program at the ICTP using their scientists and their instrumentation. In fact, a truck full instrumentation came from Geneva to Trieste with some custom problems at the border between Switzerland and Italy, of course. And the first college was organized at ICTP in 1981 with 180 participants. The colleges were repeated again several times in Trieste and many other countries with the necessary instrumentation constructed here at the ICTP. Before ICTP essentially did not even have a screwdriver, but then we were even able to construct the necessary equipment. The success of any initiative depends always on some key individuals. Here, for the colleges of microprocessor, I must mention two people who were the essential for the success of the colleges. One was a scientist, Rinos Verkerk, a Dutch physicist from CERN, who had designed and conducted all the scientific and technical aspects. And another person was Mrs. Ines Wezlenit-Naskowitz from Serbia. She was a member of the Council of the UNU, United Nations University. She was visiting ICTP on the occasion of the first college, understood the importance of the program and convinced the UNU Council to use for several years the full Italian pledge to UNU for the colleges of microprocessor of the ICTP. The total was several million dollars. As I said before, the college was organized several times in Trieste, but also exported in other countries, Colombia, Portugal, Ghana, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China. You see how many countries we brought all the equipment there. There is another program where those two aspects, the cooperation with the Italian institution and the external funding are both present. It is the master of medical physics, that master we celebrated this morning with the graduation of the student of this year. In fact, this morning, we have graduated 29 scientists coming from the 9th cycle. In the first cycles, the program was funded mainly by the ICTP. Presently, most of the budget consists of fellowships provided by the TC department of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is the first aspect, the external funding. In fact, in these years, the agency contributed to the master in medical physics with several million dollars. The other essential aspect is the cooperation with the Italian institution. In fact, it is the network of the 26 Italian hospitals which are hosting our students in the second year. Again, as I said before, the success of any new initiative depends always on some key individuals. For the master in medical physics, I must mention here the two main actors which have been essential in designing and running this program. The director of the master, Professor Renata Longa from the University and the coordinator of the master, Dr. Renata Padavani from the Udine Hospital. Soon, today, ICTP will award to three individuals the Spirit of Salon Prize, which has been conferred through the years to a number of individuals. I also received it eight years ago. I think that the collective prize should be given to the ICTP staff who are largely sharing the success of the center and have absorbed fully the true spirit of Salon. I was expecting that, in fact. My sincere thanks to the ICTP director for the ceremony and to all the friends I had and I have among the ICTP staff. I will close saying that if in my life I had some success a large credit must be given to the affection and support of my family, my wife who is sick now, and my children. Thank you, Liliana. Thank you, Elena. Thank you, Bruno. I think just today morning I was in the ceremony for the graduation ceremony of the medical physics and it was a wonderful tribute to the contribution that Luciano has made even after his retirement because this program is really wonderful to see young and experienced people also in the medical profession coming from really very 25 different countries. 29 people from, I don't know, 23 different countries. This is really an excellent example of this mission of ICTP which is possible only through this kind of collaboration between the university, the Trieste hospital system, the Italian hospital system, IAA, ICTP, something that I think is not possible anywhere else in the world. So, happy birthday Luciano. It's the 90th birthday. I think both of them have made very exceptional contributions both to science and to the dissemination of science globally and locally and their commitment has nurtured generations of physicists. So, I think they will continue to be an inspiration. So, happy birthday. I will say a few words about Erio. I mean, he is well known for his pioneering research on superconductivity, superfluidity and quantum phase transition which has earned him widespread recognition and he's of course much younger than Luciano. So, I'm going to give the floor to him now. Well friends, it is hard not to be emotional in situations like these. I'm greatly pleased and honoured for this circumstance even though it is connected with realizing that I spent more than half of my life in this place and I don't think it was the worst period of my life as a matter of fact. It was one of the best because it had to do with things that I liked with things of value, programs of value and mostly spending time with people of great quality. And this, as I always tell my students is one of the things that they should look out for when they look for a job. Look where you go. Look at the quality of the project but look at the quality of people that you're going to work with. It will make your life this way or that way. And it's been a privilege for me to be so lucky to make it here. In 1977 and thanks to Abdu Salam and the ICTP existing here. Abdu Salam is one of two people that played the role here. The other one is Paolo Budinic whom we should not at all forget about. In fact it is not now being ten years since he passed away. Looks like yesterday, ten years. In fact because it is ten years some colleagues and friends are making a proposal to the municipality of Trieste to dedicate a square or a street or some public entity to his name. It cannot be done before ten years since the passing away. And I take the opportunity to inform you that tomorrow afternoon at 6 p.m. in the municipality of Trieste there will be a short session where some colleagues and friends are going to propose Paolo Budinic and it would be good to show our faces and our good intentions out there. It's going to last very short time I understand five or ten minutes but that's the occasion. Alessandro Riccetti here and the vice mayor, Serena Tonel I think are going to do that. Paolo Budinic, he is a monumental figure to this city but not to this institute but not only to them. He has created so many other things including CISA where have been a professor for a long time. And the last one I'd like to remember since he passed away a couple of years ago is a great director of ICTP. All other directors and deputy directors luckily are alive and well. Miguel passed away two years ago. He was really a great director of ICTP although he had the talent of making his best friends and happy by shouting at them. If you were his friend he would shout at you and you had to understand that this was a sign of friendship. If you were not his friend he would not talk to you of course. That also led to some misunderstandings with our sacred institutions but eventually the whole net input of Miguel Villasoro is very high and very positive. 1977 is the beginning of my history here but it's not the first time I came. In fact, I came as a PhD student from Sqaure Normal in Pisa to attend this, that was the first condensed matter winter college over here. October to December 1970 1967 so that was really only three years since the foundation of ICTP. And that was when we were still in Piazza Oberdam like Luciano was saying and there are beautiful pictures and so on which I will not indulge with. This was the time when I saw that this place was worth coming to. This picture is one of the few ones I could find, not a great one. I think we were in Cividal actually in this picture all the time I can see people like Francis Allotti here. He was always endowed with a camera photographing everything and Rupini over here and I believe this was Saiya Khanit over there. No one ever knew whether to call him Saiya Khanit or some some degeneracy. I think there's even Dalafi hiding there in the bottom. And Williams who played a great role with us with respect to Nigeria. So this was the time when one could be fascinated by the place, one could be fascinated by the ideas and by the openness that they had to build what they needed to build. There was nothing in Trieste before, nothing in this area or in many other scientific areas and I think it was starting from that point that all the other things began including the synchrotron we have here in Sir Jose from the synchrotron and many, many other many other realities. But I want to take last minute of your time to reminisce about Luciano Bertocchi here. I'm particularly grateful to him for many reasons. First of all for reminding me that I'm a young man that is extremely important right? The second reason is that you are teaching me physics. In 1966 I was trained in elementary particle physics and I was in San Geneva as a summer student. Luciano was there and he was giving a course and this is the booklet of courses that he was giving and I was studying it and seeing how beautiful things were in this field. Later on when I came to Trieste I found him here unexpectedly became most of friends and collaborators and I got him to teach me many things. One of the things that he tried to teach me was to cross country skiing which of course I failed miserably here is a Marcha Longa that he took until two years ago and it's not because he stopped it's because the snow stopped coming Luciano would have continued to do Marcha Longas but the climate warming took over his time. The other thing he taught me with a little more success not so much but still is to go mushrooming together so if you want to know things about mushrooms in this area forget it because he would have taken them all but but across the border there's still some room and he knows well. So this is all he gave me I gave him one thing I was studying his lectures and I found some mistakes here I came to him reporting the mistakes I'm not sure that made him happy but it must have made him happy that somebody was studying whatever he was scribbling right and this is about it. Thanks a lot to you and thanks ICTP Happy birthday both of you now we move to the spirit of Salam award ceremony and I'm very happy that grandson of Abdul Salam is here Osama he will make some few remarks as you know this spirit of Salam was instituted by so by instituted by the Salam family and it may be given to anyone within the extended ICTP family non-scientist and administrative staff alike who have worked tirelessly to further Abdul Salam's humanitarian vision and passion for cooperation, promotion and development of science and technology in the developing world so and the family of the Abdul Salam they set up this spirit of Abdul Salam award this is announced annually on the occasion of ICTP Salam distinguished lectures which are usually held in the last week of January to coincide with Abdul Salam's birthday on the 29th of January so I'm very pleased to welcome today his grandson Osama Osama for his house Good afternoon everyone and thanks for the introduction as you mentioned I'm the grandson of Professor Abdul Salam and I'll just say what the spirit of Salam award means, what it means to the family why we give it out and then introduce the winners as well but before I get into that I'd just like to firstly extend massive thank yous from the family for all the contributions of ICTP staff particularly those that have received the long service awards today it's wonderful to have such remarkable people supporting the centre so thank you for your work I wish Professors Bataki and Tosati a very happy birthday from the whole Salam family thank you for your kind words and decades of service many many more than I've been alive so some of you here may have heard me speak at this event before or more likely my father and his memories of ICTP go way back to the very earliest days in the 1960s when my father first visited as a little boy and sat with my grandfather in the old Piazza Oberdam building in the city of Trieste it is an honour to represent the whole Salam family and be with you today the Salam story is such a complex one but it's got some consistent themes that we like to pick out and I will try to be brief now an indication of my grandfather's brilliance that we've sort of noted recently is that the idea to create this centre came to him when he was only 30 years old he was so far sighted that he saw a need for this place not a scientific intellectual academic need but a humanitarian need it came from a desire and a passion to serve humanity and help the underprivileged whose only disadvantage was that they had been born in a certain country now as you may well know the name Abdu Salam means servant of peace in Arabic a name that he was given after his father received it in a dream and that name is really what he lived up to in his life a servant of peace and of humanity and so for us ICTP in this centre is really his greatest legacy the legacy that came from his passionate extreme and as Nigel Calder said in his speech here in 1997 a cosmic anger to address the inequality between the developed and the developing nations now my grandfather had been deeply deeply affected by his predicament on whether to leave his family in Pakistan a country he loved or to step aside from physics because fundamentally he couldn't for a long time stay in Pakistan and pursue physics to the level he wanted to and reluctantly he was forced to leave and move to the UK it was a huge horrible decision for him and he vowed that he would do what he could so that no one else would face that same decision he also knew that for any country to grow economically to prosper and rise and develop it needed access to science and technology from its own citizens the brightest and the best a country could not afford to lose these people to the already developed nations they needed to be encouraged and given opportunities so they could choose to stay at home and further develop their local communities and so this sprouted the idea for this Centre, ICTP and my grandfather fought so hard against prejudice and ignorance at the highest level to make that dream a reality that is supported by so many remarkable people today now our family obviously saw how hard he worked first hand how he fought and overcame the doubters and the objectors with the support of some of the individuals that we've mentioned and actually at this point it seems appropriate to pay tribute to our primary supporters and hosts as well if it wasn't for the generosity and support of the Italian government ICTP would have closed its doors years ago with a huge set of grass cheaters as well but while he was working so hard to keep this place going, keep the lights running he was also doing his own work he was teaching and studying and he would often split his day into thirds one third of his day for his visitors and for his students so he would gave them the time to be taught and to learn one third for his own research he never gave up on his own science and then one third for his administrative duties to run the centre itself to be able to do these three things simultaneously required an incredible spirit an incredible belief in what he was doing and the importance of serving humanity in this way and that is the spirit that we are trying to recognise with this award and through all of this he never forgot his humble roots he never forgot to make time and give support and help anyone who needed it he sacrificed himself for his passion and it's we, the Salam family remember as the spirit of Salam as I've mentioned and that's what we wish to keep alive the spirit of selflessness sacrifice, commitment and genuine love for humanity so this award is given by the family to a person or people who have worked tirelessly in the spirit of Abdus Salam someone who has gone beyond their defined role and gone out of their way to help guide, support, mentor or just be there for members of the ICTP family it's not a scientific award by any nature it's really about addressing that spirit of working hard going beyond to just help people we really believe that it is critical to keep the spirit of Salam alive and to remind everyone the importance of this quality of my grandfather it's what differentiates this institute and makes ICTP really special and it's open to everyone to echo Professor Bataki's comments earlier we would absolutely love nominations for the support staff we always look for them every year it is for scientists it's for non-scientists, support staff whoever has gone beyond their role and it can be an individual, it can be a collective I remember a number of years ago he gave the award to the library staff here at ICTP so please do nominate these people online I believe nominations close on the 8th of January this year for the award next year so please do go and nominate them I'll end my remarks with just a few thoughts from my grandfather's collaborator student and friend Riazadine he suggested that my grandfather's work and life is summarized in two words curiosity and compassion Victor Weisskopf said that compassion without curiosity is ineffective curiosity without compassion in human curiosity is what led my grandfather to seek unity in the various phenomena of nature the basis of his Nobel work but it was the compassion which led him to seek unity in mankind the benefit of mankind and so finally simply all that there is to say is that that compassion is what drives his crowning achievement of his life which is not the Nobel work it's not the research, it's this institute the creation and development of ICTP and all the good that it does and so today we get the chance to recognize three fantastic individuals who have been nominated and we've chosen to win this award for the work they've done so I'll just read out their names and a bit about them and as I do each one can come up and collect a certificate so the first to mention is Tino Nuauilo Tino was an attendee of ICTP at the 1991 high energy diploma course 97, sorry I've got a typo here 1997 energy diploma course and I think it's fair to say that you were influenced by his time at ICTP such that he's focused his time to aid refugees to enroll in STEM studies you've been a strong supporter of promoting science in home country and Africa as a whole and in addition Tino with community partners founded Refuges to address the challenges faced by refugee youth minorities women and economically disadvantaged students in schools his own family fled the Sudanese Civil War and so he was able to draw on his own experiences to help build refugees from the ground up into the successful organization today and I don't think I need to say how amazingly that aligns with the spirit of my grandfather and everything that he built and everything he worked towards in helping these people from developed countries so Tino thank you very much for all your work and thank you for representing his name so well so the second winner then this year I'd like to mention is Ugo Salso Perez-Rajas who has encouraged scientific courses in various different areas of physics in Cuba inviting relevant scientists of the world including Nobel laureates to avoid the isolation of scientists in the developing world that isolation that my grandfather really felt Ugo has done amazing work with others from feeling that he's used ICTP funds designed for excellent or eminent researchers to visit a developing country and has invited well known scientists to the department of physics in Havana Ugo also came up with the idea to create affiliate centers of ICTP and is an example of a scientist that has devoted his whole life energy and passion to follow and disseminate the ideas of Abdus Salam and to work in line of Salam and his spirit. Ugo I believe he met father my grandfather three times and was so clearly influenced and inspired by the message and passion so thank you as well for all your work in keeping his spirit alive I must say some words I I want to thank the family of Abdus Salam and all persons from ICTP especially forwarding me as well as Taino and Federico the spirit of Abdus Salam award Salam great brilliant physicist from developing developing world got his prize in a jointly with Glaciu and Weiber for his work on contribution to the electroweak unification theory but Salam made another outstanding contribution to science from the social, economical and cultural points of view he founded ICTP and to us opening the doors of advanced research to thousands of scientists from the developing world in three occasions I had the pleasure to meet him for different time of course first one I think it was no more than three minutes and I was invited to talk with him and it was I was impressed by his hospitality and human concern about all ICTP visitors as well as by his amazing ability to extract the most of the conversation in a brief amount of time the second chance the meeting was longer I visited ICTP again and went with two Cuban colleagues to discuss about the idea of placing a smiley skull a more local version of ICTP in our home country fostered the development of physics, mathematics in the Caribbean he responded sharply and he was glad to contribute with the very strong support from the Cuban side the third time I chatted with him with a polemical issue and I was involved in a quantum field theory I remember he was salomonic at avoiding any explicit controversy with field fellow scientists to help in high esteem such experiences show me the moral dimension behind this great theoretical physics that he was he was indeed a great man in all senses one that I always looked up to do I shaped my views of science as a locomotive driving process progress in the world especially in the developing world which has to cultivate science despite its difficulties and precisely because of those science is a form of culture as art and literature can be decided in the whole enterprise of science and technological development it is critical to keep a healthy core of fundamental research I often had the traveling with authorities from my home country to pass on these important messages with some efforts many of such battles have been won and fundamental sciences have guided recognition at the Cuban national level they have always thought that science needs to be held in high regard by communities, authorities and practitioners it is the mission of a scientist to make it so I try to do my part by stimulating many young students and researchers to look at the broad picture to engage in scientific dialogues with educational centers from high schools to universities and to defend and promote science values in any forum they might be part of I am proud of having founded a small theoretical physical group at ECMAP an institute of in Habana committed to such mission some have called it a group and oasis and with some reason I think because it is a space where open mind rigor rigor and devotion to science join in a collaborative environment that hosted over 40 researchers in nearly 5 years and provided them with the necessary atmosphere for growing as scientists and human beings I feel my legacy is in strong connection with the spirit of Abdul Salam and I have tried to live up to the challenges he has left us with thanks you very much thank you very much Ugo for those wonderful words and very much for keeping his father's spirit alive so the last of the winners to mention today is Federico Rose Federico is a native who has been around ICTP for his whole life he has made efforts to promote research in low and middle income countries collaborations with scientists from developing countries resulting in over 165 joint publications involving researchers from 12 developing countries the fruits of many joint projects programs, international exchanges and networks of which he was often the main driver in addition to his numerous efforts in capacity building and promoting joint research programs he also invests time and energy and knowledge transfer and dissemination for the broader community he has organized meetings, conferences promoted networks and built communities for colleagues building bridges not only between generations but also between cultures Federico has co-chaired or participated in organizing over 130 conferences on different forefront topics in 27 countries more than half of which are developing and in that network and that real community feel bringing together scientists from developed and developing nations Federico has done a fantastic job in keeping the spirit of Salam alive so thank you very much Federico. So last thing for me is just a huge thank you to everyone involved in ICTP for all your work keeping the center alive to be able to come here every year and give this award means a huge amount to the family and we're deeply deeply in gratitude to you also thank you and congratulations thank you very much to the winners of the Salam award again and back to Atif. Thank you Osama I think you and the Salam family for this wonderful idea to honor the contributions to the humanitarian mission of ICTP and I think that's very important and I would like to congratulate the three very deserving and long-term associates of ICTP and they would like to show a couple of slides I'm told so I give the floor to you Good afternoon everyone I'm really overwhelmed with the gratitude to have been selected to receive the 2023 Spirit of Salam award thank you so much for being here today I'm so honored to have my work recognized in this way by the family of Salam I would like also to thank those who nominated me for this wonderful prize and I just wanted to share just few words about the program that I founded around 2009 2008 2010 when I moved to Utah so a little bit about myself I'm from South Sudan I came as a diploma student from Sudan before the country split from the Civil War and ICTP really shaped my in a many many ways so that is something that when I left here the spirit of Salam was on me because I'm really really lucky to have the support of ICTP who helped me with many things and I feel actually that I with those refugees that I have been helping is that we share the same story because the first time I left my country I came to Italy to a new culture, new language and there was a lot of struggle to transition so those are the same thing that most of the refugees in Utah face so I the reason for forming this program is to address many many many challenges that refugees a new American face in education system in Utah and so many many of them education system in the US is based on age placement so many many refugees they spend years in refugee camps and then when they are accepted to go to the US as refugees the system there is placed them into classes based on their age so they ask if you are 15 years old then you are in 9th grade even though being in a refugee camp for many many years there is no education system so that led to a lot of issues that many many students could not succeed because with many things the other things also that limited English proficiency both for parents and it make it hard to transition and also interrupted schooling in refugee camps and also disconnect parents many many education system in the US it relies also on parents contribution parents they are not usually they don't understand so it's very hard to so when we decided to resolve those issues we did a lot of town hall meetings with refugees and I should say that Utah is a very welcoming place for refugees there is about 65,000 when I was there and I felt there home actually because there is about Sudanese we were about 5,000 so there is a big big community there so I felt home many many my colleagues that my class made in Sudan so I met them so I felt home so after all these town hall meetings that we did we decided to create a program and actually refugee is an acronym as you realize that is refugee exploring the foundation of undergraduate education and science and it has two component so there is an after school component and then there is a summer program and this third component actually is a bridge program so I just wanted to highlight some of the things that we do in after school program so one of the thing that the program is designed to address all those needs so one of the needs that the program address is to help those students with their homework so we started in a church we have volunteers who come and help those students with homework and this is actually in 2012 we are just helping a student so there is also volunteer that help a lot with homework so depending on the day it's not only educational issues but also we have a lot of issues that are related to gun violence gang prevention so those are things also that you have to address so we have a number of prevention programming that we work with police department to educate those kids about the danger of gangs and this kind of things and also we have teen pregnancy program to prevent so but in addition to all those things also education is not cheap in the US so you need also to address the cost of education is very expensive so we devoted part of our after school program to college and career readiness so we prepare students for many many tests like ACT is like a GRE to prepare students to go to college if they are college ready so we provide those kind of classes we help those students with college applications we help them with scholarships and so that so it has been really really rewarding to see many many of those students actually they went to college they graduate and then the second component of the program is when they graduate from high school it's not easy to get college so we created that eight weeks program where those students we bring them to campus for about eight weeks where we prepare them with foundation of science with math and so that at least provide them also with housing to build a cohort so many many of student this is student there he finished and went to medical school many many years ago and so that is something that I really really credit ICTP who shaped my my journey I was lucky to be here and then got the support that I got so with that I thank you all and it's really really back to see many many people friends that helped me most of them retired but I'm happy to see many many faces thank you so much I'd like to start by thanking of course the family of the salam and the ICTP and it's a little bit difficult to speak after so many distinguished speakers sorry I'm clearly inept at this so it's a little bit difficult to say something meaningful after so many distinguished speakers that have provided great inspiration to all of us for many decades so I'd like to share with you a little bit of where I come from more importantly where I hope we will all go together it's not as ominous as it sounds but we are in danger first I'd like to thank mostly the people that I worked with essentially as you can see here I'm not sure I know how to operate this thing but let me try yeah so I've collaborated with scientists from 37 countries many of them in the south and I've had trainees from 46 different countries and 32 alumni are professors in 14 countries including several countries in the south they are really in many ways the the protagonists of this story because they did all the hard work and the heavy lifting some friends of mine when I tell them about all my travels they start sort of jokingly criticizing me yes I have a very high carbon footprint and some colleagues actually when I tell them the miles that I fly in a year they try to calculate my average speed my average daily speed anyway here I would like to quote Bertrand Russell who said the reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man anyway this is a group picture from a few years ago in pre-pandemic times so okay this is where we're from the credit for the picture on the right goes to Carl Sagan who thought of turning the camera backwards when the satellite was very far out in the solar system these picture I find them particularly moving and inspiring this is our only home but we're kind of destroying it not kind of having lived in North America for 21 years I cherish this proverb from the native people of this land we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children so the United Nations have defined sustainable development two words that in my view don't go together very well they also created this concept of 17 sustainable development goals it's a little bit too many when you scatter your efforts across so many different priorities it's like you kind of lose focus and you don't make any progress in any specific direction so I decided to pick one the energy challenge and although these two pictures are a little bit old they're still quite accurate so we're roughly here in 2023 over 80% of the energy we use is based on fossil fuels then a few percent nuclear a couple percent hydroelectric everything else was called biomass I sort of hope for solar because every hour the sun sends to our planet enough energy to power the world for one year but solar is actually a very small percentage of the energy we use so does anybody know what is the percentage contribution of solar to the whole energy pie? you guys need coffee? I realize I'm the only thing that stands for coffee I realize that so does anybody know what the contribution of solar but the gentleman here says 10% I like his optimism unfortunately we're not quite there anybody has another figure to offer? 5% from the lady up there I wish but anybody else anything more accurate? the director here says 1% and that's probably the most accurate estimate we have so far 1% is of course negligible if you're an optimist you can just think that it can only get better the other aspect of course that I want to draw your attention to is this one here where population is a function of time you can see that we are many more than 8 billion and although it's difficult to do anything about world population clearly as long as there's more people on the planet they're going to need energy and water and jobs and create more waste so sustainability is going to be elusive as long as we keep growing in population the other aspect that I want to draw your attention to is this picture of the world at night from a satellite besides reminding us that we waste a lot of energy it also tells us that the distribution or the availability of energy is not the same for everyone so you can see that large parts of South America and most of Africa and large parts of Central Asia are dark at night this means that people living in those areas do not have any light do not have any electricity and those same people don't have enough food or water or sanitation or healthcare and if you wonder how many they are the estimates vary between 1.5 and 2 billion so possibly about a quarter of the world population don't have their basic needs satisfied now the initial inspiration for the kind of work that I do came when I attended the United World College nearby in Duino that's an experience that inspires me to this day I also had the pleasure of sharing one year with Adelaide back in those days she was a fellow student it was it was a moment of awakening I had grown up in an upper middle class Italian family and I realized that I was taking so much for granted it was a huge eye-opener so as dismal as this map is here we can think of a mass of possibilities because the same areas that are dark at night are the ones that have most sunshine during the day and that's where solar comes in and where we could have a huge impact on society if we were to deploy solar technologies coupled with adequate source solutions in these parts of the world it's a huge undertaking one that I doubt I will see in my lifetime although I would like to but that's what gives me hope it's the ICTP that inspired me to create a UNESCO chair UNESCO chair is a sort of it's like an embryo of an ICTP-like organization it comes with support from UNESCO but only moral support they don't give us a penny of course and the idea is that several organizations and institutions will pool resources to jointly address some kind of societal challenge typically one of those sustainable development goals and here of course the overarching topics of the UNESCO chair are capacity building and energy back when I created the UNESCO chair I had a support letter from ICTP from then director and it certainly helped a lot morally and in many other ways to get this off the ground we work on third generation solar technologies the main reason is that they're low energy intensive this means that you don't need a large energy budget to fabricate the solar cells if you think of silicon solar cells it's a great commercial technology but the act of building those solar cells requires a lot of energy most of that energy comes from fossil fuels and therefore just building the solar cell creates a lot of carbon emissions and incidentally if you think about it we have to build the whole infrastructure for renewables that 80% that we're missing because it's based on fossil fuels and our only hope is to develop low energy intensive technologies because building infrastructure of course requires money, space skilled labor, raw materials and energy and most of that energy today comes from fossil fuels so we use quantum dots as sensitizers you may have heard of that from the latest Nobel in chemistry I won't go into details but these are great building blocks for both emitting absorbing light and transforming it into other forms of energy and in working on these technologies I realized that the real bottleneck is not sustainable development goal number 7 affordable and clean energy that's what I thought it was but it turns out that it's really SDG number 12's responsible consumption we could discuss for many hours about plastic and how plastic is not sustainable of course but here this is another aspect of SDG number 12 a lot of elements that we use in most of the technologies we take for granted like smartphones, computers these days cars pretty much anything in the sort of developed rich world rely on some elements that are critical very scarce and very rare and expensive and so there's several aspects that we need to address if we want to become sustainable we should be using elements that are non-toxic I already mentioned low energy intensive technologies introduced recycling principles we live in a consumer society so most of the time we don't actually recycle we just throw into a landfill and this is part of the non-sustainable lifestyle we've developed which is really problematic so there are solutions to all this I want to leave you with some hope at least because when you have no hope then you just give up of course and that's not what we want to do and these solutions rely of course on education that's one of the cornerstones of this institution here and science and technology as well leadership and innovation and I think in many ways we've seen a pretty disappointing lack of leadership at least as far as I'm concerned and so I'm hoping for the future generations to stand up and take up their role of leaders so that we can merge on to a more sustainable pathway incidentally the idea of the UNESCO chair came about following a discussion with my dad here in the audience about 15 years ago and it sort of that discussion kind of shaped my views as I realize that I'm a professor before I'm a scientist and therefore I should devote more time and effort in training and educating people so I guess we're about to finish at this point I also want to thank three previous awardees of the spirit of a salam award for either encouraging me or supporting my nomination or both one of them is here in the audience at the other side one of them received the award last year malik matzah and another one is galileo violini and I'd like to leave you with this thought we are living in an energy crisis now crisis is a word that we tend to associate with a very negative connotation I'm facing a crisis that's usually not good but in the original meaning crisis just signifies divergence of paths or a choice that's the original meaning in Greek so I have many Chinese colleagues and students and I often go to China and I asked one day how do you say crisis in Chinese it turns out to be a composite character and go figure that the first one means danger and the second one means opportunity and this is what I want to leave you with we've navigated in dangerous waters for the past years we now have the opportunity to change and change course towards something more sustainable thanks thanks again to everyone so thank you all prize winners today the spirit of salam award winners today for their illuminating comments and thank you all of you thank you all those who received their long service awards and now is a good time to go to the cafeteria for end of year get together so I invite all of you to join us there