 Good morning. I am greatly honored to introduce Dr. Segandet Kelemu. Dr. Kelemu is an Ethiopian scientist noted for her research as a molecular plant pathologist. She has served in key positions in high-profile science organizations and has received numerous international awards, just to name a few. She received the 2014 Lunesco for Women in Science Award. The People's Republic of China gave her the Friendship Award for her contribution to China's economic and social development. The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World gave her an award in 2011. Dr. Kelemu has published widely in refugee journals and other reputable academic locations. Her scholarship includes publications on edible insects, prediction of breeding regions for the desert locust, and genetic diversity. Dr. Kelemu is the director of the International Center of Insect, Physiology, and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya. One of their research activities focuses on the well-being of bees. They want to find out what makes African bees more resilient, more tolerant of diseases. This research would have an impact beyond the African continent. Dr. Kelemu's research helps us understand how plants endure so many challenges, drought, herbivores, pests, climate change. She wants to keep farmers from devastating losses by better understanding the symbiotic relationship between plants and insects. She believes that insects play a great role in our lives, that they are a great contributor to food security, for instance, by being big pollinators. But that they also have damaging impacts. They destroy crops in pre- and post-harvest periods and transmit diseases to humans, animals, and crops. Please let us welcome Dr. Kelemu to the podium. Okay, until I get it for the slide. Okay, good morning everybody. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. So English is one of the most tortured languages spoken around the globe in so many different accents. So please prepare to adjust your understanding of Ethiopian accent influenced by other languages, weird and then weird languages I speak. So I thank the organizers for this opportunity for inviting me to this flawlessly organized conference. So it's really a great pleasure to be here. So before I go into my main talk, I want to talk about why insects. I say this because people often ask me, what do you do for a living? I say I'm a scientist, oh my God, then you are too smart to talk to. Then what exactly do you do in science? I said I run an organization, research for development organization focused on insects. You mean the entire organization focused on these tiny insects? I say yes. So they don't ask what are insects because everybody knows insects, right? Then the next question is why insects? So with a tone, with a connotation that why do you waste millions of dollars and effort on these tiny, useless insects? So I think the organizers, they coined these insects Little Body Big Impact. It's a beautiful title. Thanks, Margaret. So I'm going to tell you today that really big impact is really true. And I'm going to give you some examples. But why insects? Because many of them are beneficial. There are estimated 10 quintillion insects, the most abundant animal owners, but the vast majority are useful. Only small fraction are harmful. They are great indicators for environmental change. They are beautiful in the landscape. They decompose wastes that we generate. And without insects and microbes decomposing this waste, actually, our planet would be a really stinky mess. And they are also extremely hardworking components, hardworking on the farm, pollinating lots of our food. And they themselves are also good in the food way. Like I think the speaker yesterday told you how many insects up to 800 million tons are consumed by spiders alone. And birds also alone consume up to 500 million tons of insects annually, just imagine that. They also generate, give us, fabric by silkworms. But there are also other roles insects play. The insects nobody said yesterday about the role of insects in forensic science. When detectives try to determine the homicide when a person died, often that insects are used in a decomposing body to determine the time of death, based on their life cycle of the decomposing maggot. Also, insects have been also inspirational in designing new equipment, medical equipment, based on wasps for example. Wasps have a special way, a structure like a needle that goes into their predator, their prey, in a sophisticated way to go in and deposit eggs. So a medical equipment has been designed based on that structure. They have been also inspirational in designing helicopters. For example, dragonflies, they maneuver while flying at high speed. I think you have seen many jewelries this week, designed inspired by different insect designs. Fabrics and so on. Robots have been also designed based on ants and many, many ways. And I think we can also learn social behavior from social insects, also teamwork, discipline, organizational skills. So there is a lot that we can learn from insects. So I think I have to take this opportunity also to introduce you the International Center of Insects, Physiology and Ecology, the only research for development organization, not only just in Africa but in the world, focused on insects. So this was founded more than 50 years ago, about 53, a little over 53 years ago, by a Kenyan entomologist, Thomas Riambo. He was the first CEO and served the center for 20 years, 23 years, followed by a Swiss entomologist Hans Ehren, then a German entomologist Christian Burgmeister and me currently running the center, a fascinating center. We are about a little over 630 regular staff from 14 nationalities and some other contracted workers. I think the major workforce, the movers and shakers of the discovery we do in insects and insect related science are our graduate students. We don't give them a degree, but they are registered in 85 plus partner universities around the globe, but they do their research with us. So a lot of the discoveries are actually made by them. Our mission is to solve to elevate poverty, ensure food security, and improve the overall status of peoples of the tropics by developing and extending management tools for harmful and also useful art reports. So this is our mission. We do high-quality basic science, but we always translate it to impact to make a difference in people's lives. So we use insects, but in four, around four thematic areas, in human hulls, in plant and animal hulls, and environmental hulls, often in a way to combine this in a one-hull approach. And we have, as I said, a huge capacity building that cataclysms. We don't do this in isolation. We have more than 300 partners around the world. We are the regional center for Stockholm Convention, regional center for reduction of pesticides. We are also FAO reference center for vectors and vector-borne diseases in animals and also for the center collaborating center in B-hulls in Africa for a world-wide organization for animal hulls and so on. So you see all this also in our top of the buildings of solar panel. We have made the whole campus 100% solar. So that was one of the infrastructure upgrade I have done thanks to the government of Switzerland for financing that. So let me just give you context. Context is always important. So let me give you some context that our way of life globally is very unsustainable. It's very destructive. We generate millions of tons of food, most of it is 60% coming from households. We waste a lot of food. We produce also animals that we farm, produce billions of tons of manure. The brewery industry produces a lot of millions of tons of waste. Thousands of potato chips that we enjoy generate thousands of tons of peel, potato peel and so on. So to manage that also waste is a multi-billion dollar also business and so on. So we are very destructive. We are wasteful. We are messy in our way of life. And to also feed a lot of our desire to eat a lot of meat, we use a lot of soya for the feed, for animal feed. And so to meet that demand, a lot of trees are being cut in Brazil to get way to produce more soya as demand grows. So the Amazon forest, for example, in the last 10 years about the size of a small island nation, 1,000 square kilometer area of forest has been cleared. About to make even matters worse, about 36% of the fish that is being fished also is used not for human food but macerated and produced for animal feed as protein source instead of going to human food. So why am I telling you this? All this I told you and more. We are using the mighty, tiny black surger fly to clean up the waste, produce high quality protein, insect protein, and replace soya and fish meal and other protein source for animal feed. That is a beautiful way of creating sustainability. So this is a black surger fly, how it looks like. What I'm showing you in the center is a larvae. The larvae are produced on waste, on manure, on human waste, on brewery waste, on potato peel, on avocado waste, on any biological waste. So basically you use a waste to produce, to rare these insects, black surger flies and multiply in mass in very short period of time. We harvest the larvae, we process them, we feed the animals, and the remaining, the insect for us is high quality fertilizer. So the most sustainable way to live our life. And this fertilizer also that we produce, fertilizer price is very, very high in Africa, so it is used in any production system. It is high quality, it's better than the commercial fertilizer. It also improves the soil hulls as well. And the insects also, during all this process also, they are a good source of oil. We will never think of insects as a source of oil. The oil, again the oil, the cooking oil, the cosmetic industry uses a lot of oil. Lots of the oil also comes from plant-based, it's plant-based. So it needs a lot of water, a lot of land and so on. But the insect source, the insect oil is also extremely high quality. It has omega-3, it has anti-oxidants, and you can produce a lot of products. So these are some of the products generated at SIPE and passed into the private sector. Soap, the omega-source oil, the cooking oil, some of this oil also, particularly from the black-sworded gerfly, can be used also as diesel, diesel oil as well. And it's absolutely fantastic. You can use also the oil to cook or to use as lotion. I use some of the oil for my hair. So it's absolutely beautiful. But also the other thing that we discovered is when you feed insect larvae to chicken, you can actually change the microbiome content in their guts, making them more resilient, and also there's no need to add antibiotics in the feed. Antibiotics in the feed, so resilient, disease-resistant and so on. So we would like also to see whether we can change the microbiome of people who are on a regular insect diet. We would like to see that actually. So this is extremely sustainable. So based on our work, this is not a theory. Now in East Africa alone, more than a thousand private sector has been sprouting in producing black-sworded gerfly for animal feed. So all these dots you see in the different countries are where the companies are concentrated. So this gentleman with the jacket is actually the former president of Kenya. He skipped one Sunday from church to visit one of the companies. So immediately he said, oh my God, I'm going to actually do this in his farm. He said, so currently about 10% of the total requirement of Kenya, Kenya's animal protein for feed is insect-based and it is growing. So this is an unbelievable innovation that has been extremely popular. We train a lot of people in this, but we can't keep up with the request, the demand. So what happens then to the plastic waste we generate? So we can clean all the mess, the biological waste. I have been pushing my team to look for also to diversify the type of insects we have for feed. So during that search, they have identified a warm African lesser mealworm that can degrade plastic completely, completely to its compound level. So you can see in this graph about 70% survival on just plastic alone after 30 days living on plastic. So it's not then they found out that it's not the insect is still chewing it, but they have microbes inside that degrade these plastics. So it is amazing to be an insect scientist. So for food, look at this variety of beautiful delicacies across Africa. So I always say that the next scramble for Africa is not going to be just for its minerals, it is cobalt, it is uranium, it is diamond. It's going to be for the variety of insects that Africa generates, edible insects. So I think any five-star chef would like these colorful things on the plate. It's just really wonderful, the variety. So there are more than 2,000 species of edible insects globally. And about estimated 2 billion people have been consuming insects traditionally in Africa, Asia, Latin America. And more than 550 of them are species are in Africa. And this dark spot here is a hot spot of insect diversity in Africa. So what we had done was to do survey in Africa all the insects, and we did chemical analysis to see the protein content, the mineral content, and so on. So most of these edible insects actually have much higher protein content than the animal and plant source proteins. So many, many countries also, they are short of nutrition, fulfilling nutrition requirements for their population. So, and we found out that insects are extremely rich in minerals and in zinc and iron. In many remote corners of poor countries, actually pregnant women who need extra iron, they actually eat dirt to get the extra iron they need. So that is absolutely not needed because a lot of these edible insects have more than the recommended daily allowance of a lot of these minerals. So we have also generated a lot of insect-based products. You can see for food, the iron, the protein bars, the feed products for fish, for chicken, for pigs, fertilizer products, plant also protection products from chitins of insects, and the oil products, a multitude of things. So this actually is, we believe, is the future. It generates a lot of income, it generates a lot of products, it generates also jobs. Many, many jobs are now being created in this industry. So I'm absolutely really, really happy that how we are changing the continent and influencing also the world. This is a program that I established when I first started at the company 10 years ago. And we do this successfully because we work together with governments, policy makers, influencing policy, educating policy makers, politicians, and developing standards and policies that accept this. So currently, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia have officially accepted this and companies are flourishing. And we are working now with the African Union to develop that. But some countries are not waiting for their governments to approve. So as you can see in this map of Africa, so now 14 species are farmed as edible insects. And there are over 2,300 black-sword fly farmers, producers in Africa, producing larvae for insect, for animal feed. So this is the fastest growing technologies that we have generated and the most impactful. And I think, so Australia recently funded us also the government to take this technology to the Pacific countries, to the islands, with our support to expand that. And so FDA had approved also a few years ago. European Union has approved, so this is the future. We are not pushing it just for Africa, but I think for the whole world. Because the whole world needs this. So this whole circular economy contributes to many sustainable development goals. And this is in the environment, in plant halls, in animal, human halls. And we won the global food planet prize, which came with $1 million for this innovative research in 2020 December. And we went to Sweden to celebrate it last year because of COVID, we couldn't go. But we spend the money already. So, and in the last five years, our work, not only is this, but overall, other parts of work also, we won 155 individual and institutional awards. And together the insects won the award as well with us. So it's an uplifting area to be in insect science. So the second example I will give you is a technology that was developed at the CPSM 20 years ago called the Pushpull technology. This was a technology developed to control a very major insect pest of the staple crop maze called stem borer. It is a very simple approach, but scientifically really complex one. So this uses two companion plants, intercropped one as a border of your target crop and the other one intercropped with your target plant crop. So there's a lot of chemistry involved here. So I don't understand it myself and I'm not going to expect you to understand it. But what was really amazing is that the companion plants, one of them called Desmodium, produces naturally compounds into volatiles into the air. We don't smell it, but the insects smell it and they don't like it. So they run away from the crop, from that plant, which is Push. The border plant, the grass, produces other set of compounds that the insects smell and like it, they're attracted to it. But then when they lay their eggs they find out that actually it's not, it's a wrong host and so the egg doesn't hatch so the life cycle finishes. So this is how in real life looks like. The trap, the push plant along with the maze in the center and then the grass around is in the border to attract the insect. So both these companion plants are high quality animal fodder. It's a beautiful system for African crop livestock mixed production system. But the science is fascinating. But over the years we discovered this system doesn't just only control insects, it controls one of the most food security threats of Africa, straga weed. This is a parasitic weed. These beautiful purple flowers. So looks are deceiving. It doesn't have roots. So they have minute seeds that can stay in the soil for 20, 30 years until they find the exudate from the roots of the host. And they detect it, they germinate, they go, they attach themselves to the root and they suck the life out of the crop. So all this is dead. You see all these women bending, trying to hand weed all day long to remove that. But the crop is already gone. So what makes me so happy is that this technology works for this. Like in the same way that, in a different way that it works for insects. So you can see this now. This is not, this is real. So here the lady, the same lady before adapting the push for technology completely, her maze is gone. This is starvation basically. And then in one season with the technology of this Halsey maze. So this is, so this technology was highlighted by the UN secretary general as one of the most innovative production system created ever in science. And I'm so proud it was generated in Africa by Africans. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you. So these technologies now over 15 countries are adopted and produced. And one of the most uplifting things is when I go to the field, talk to all these women and they tell me how this changed their lives. One time I was talking to women farmers in Ethiopia who adopted this. And one of them told me, oh, thank you, madam, that this changed my life. They did this and so on. And then she says, but it's not you who gave us. It is God who gave us this gift. I said, no problem. I work in partnership with God. So she didn't like that joke. So don't joke about religion. So because this has been successful and we have developed it now with six, $7 million grant, we are developing it for vegetables as well. Because this is women crop. It has a multitude of pests and so on. We are developing it successfully for vegetables. So this is one of the technologies that can handle multiple, multiple constraints, major constraints in production system. Insect stem borers, fall army worm, weeds, it's a fodder plant. It does climate change mitigation and adaptation, soil fertility improvement. Because one of the companion plants naturally fixes nitrogen. So you don't have to apply fertilizer. So it really makes me jump, you know. So it also controls Aflatoxin, mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are common globally and more predominantly in Africa. So the mycotoxins are carcinogen. They cause stunting in children. But also if it is in high concentration also it can kill people. So this can solve that also and so on. So what tells you is that nature works in sync. So you develop one effective technology for one thing and then it solves a lot of other things. But this is once in a lifetime discovery. And this is a technology that keeps on giving. We still don't know everything about what this does actually. The last example I'm going to give you is again exciting, exciting, exciting discovery made in our institution. Malaria. Malaria is an old disease. The rest of the world has managed to eradicate it. I think recently it popped in Florida, I believe. This is an old disease. It has changed history. If you read about the history of Panama Canal. So Panama Canal, the French started building it. But Malaria completely devastated their workers, engineers, killing more than 20,000 people. So they had to abandon that project. And the Americans took over, tried to disinfect and stabilize the situation. Because they did not know at that time it was not known that it was mosquitoes that transmitted it. But eventually in 1904 or so Americans discovered that it was mosquitoes that transmitted the disease. It was malaria and yellow fever which were deadly, both of them. But malaria still is a killer in Africa. More than 90% of the incidents are in Africa. So a child even today dies every two minutes from malaria. And this is not acceptable. So all the existing technologies control measures now have plateaued. The mosquitoes are getting smarter. They are biting earlier and out of the door and transmitting and killing people. So we started, we have a major malaria program. We started working. We have many, many different research area. But this was basically an accidental discovery by one of the students. So in the area where there is endemic presence of malaria, the mosquitoes that naturally harbor a microbe, a fungus called micro-sporidia, cannot transmit malaria. 100% transmission blockage. This was like, are you kidding me? This was a wow moment. So you can see these red ones in the microscope, under the microscope. These are the micro-sporidia associated in the insect, in the mosquito. But what was exciting is also that the mosquito, the female mosquito that harbors it, she transmits the next generation through the egg, which is fantastic for large-scale application. And then we later discovered actually it is also sexually transmitted. So the male mosquito that has it can transmit it also to the female during sexual mating. And you can see this red one where the micro-sporidia is penetrating in the embryo of the female mosquito in the ovaries. And then in the male, it is associated with a male gonad in the ejaculation duct of the male gonad. So it was evolutionary designed for transmission and long-term also maintenance. So this was great. So once we published this discovery in Nature, so a lot of funding started flying towards our door to control this. So the beauty of this also is that, for example, for dengue, control will back here, a bacterium has been used for control of dengue at a large scale in Australia. So the results show, the preliminary results now, that will back here containing mosquitoes. Actually, you can reduce dengue by 77% and the reduction of also hospitalization of dengue patients by 86%. So this is great. But the malaria, it is unique to us, but this is encouraging for us. Now what we are doing is a large-scale trial, semi-filled trial together with the regulators to actually do, to determine what environmental factors influence this, how many male infected mosquitoes do we need to release, and what are the conditions we need. So a multi-disciplinary team composed of modellers, ecologists, and entomologists, and molecular bodies are working now, more than 25 people on this. So we are really excited. But I think also the beauty of this also, for some reason, the female mosquitoes, they prefer to mate with male mosquitoes that have this micro-sporidia, the fungal symbiont. So we are very excited. I think we are proud of eradicating this toxic disease, killer disease. So, thank you. So these are the figures. The figures, female mosquitoes, they prefer to mate with micro-sporidia containing male. We don't know the reason why. Why do they prefer that? But it will be really beautiful for us for the large-scale eradication or application. So we also believe that for every problem, vector-borne diseases, there may be a symbiosis-based solution. So I think we are proud that major, major move to control other vector-borne diseases like Zika. You remember Zika? And many, many others, yellow fever and dengue and all others. So we are really excited. So I'm grateful to all the funders, direct funders to us who make all this possible. So I just hope also that the students who are here, I think it is really fantastic to be a scientist. There is nothing more rewarding than using your skill to change lives, to solve global problems when we have tons of global problems. A few years ago when my daughter was little, like four or five years old, she declared one day that mommy, daddy, you guys are so boring. All you talk about is science and you work so hard and you are not even rich. So I will never be a scientist. So we told her, no, you don't have to be a scientist, but you can choose whatever. But she ended up being a scientist. So she's working now, her PhD on dung beetles. Dung beetles on the role they do on what is it called, a nutrient cycling in African savannas. And I think she's going to be a spectacular scientist. She's really good. So I encourage all of you to be scientists. That's what I'm saying, or at least work with scientists to contribute to society. Thank you so much.