 Great pleasure. Welcome everybody. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome you here. Even though the Boudinich Hall is empty, I'm sure all of you are connected from all over the world. And there are a few people present in the Boudinich Hall. So it's a wonderful occasion for ICTP to celebrate 30 years of ICTP postgraduate diploma program. And we have an exciting program for the next three days. There are more than 400 registered participants. And we are quite excited about the fact that we are able to reconnect. So before we start, I would like to just welcome you with the ICTP welcome video. So please go ahead. Humans have always been curious. Why is the world the way it is? How does the world work? What does the future hold? The excitement of new IDs, passionate pursuit of new knowledge, expending the horizons of all. These belong to everyone. The Abdu-Salaam International Center for Theoretical Physics has a unique mission that supports research excellence in physics and mathematics and the nurturing of sustainable science for all. ICTP's founder, the Nobel laureate Abdu-Salaam, believed that science is the common heritage of all humanity. The Center supports researchers from less advantaged countries and works to remove barriers they may face. Here, everyone speaks one common language, science. Basic and applied research are both vital for society, from fundamental particles to black holes, from climate change to quantum computing. Work at ICTP's collaboration opens doors. The exchanges and global scientific networks built here create fertile ground for new discoveries. These connections encourage brain gain. ICTP's training and education programs support scientists throughout their careers. They share their knowledge with students enriching the global community of researchers. ICTP, where outstanding scientists explore the frontiers of knowledge, build capacity and promote bright minds. A community united by the power of science. Okay, so let's continue with the program. Let me just say a few words of introduction. The purpose of this event is, in fact, twofold. One is, of course, to celebrate this wonderful occasion of 30 years of anniversary of the postgraduate diploma program, which has been an essential component of ICTP's global mission. And we would like to also take this opportunity to help establish more firmly the ICTP global community through regional networks to strengthen our presence everywhere, taking input from all of you so that we can better serve scientists and students coming from the developing world. Because we at ICTP believe that great science knows no borders and scientific talent is found everywhere. And you all, I mean, Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematician was an inspiring example of this. And all of you are a testimony to the success and the correctness of this fundamental belief of ICTP. So we are very proud of you. ICTP is very proud of you because many of you have gone on to do wonderful things in science. Some of you have left science but have made a mark in other fields. And we are here to really learn from each other's experience what the alumni's have done. And in fact, we are joined not only by the students but also our associates and other alumni, other members of the ICTP global community will be joining in. Also the members of the scientific council, the steering committee. So I'm really looking forward to a very interesting and exciting program. I should emphasize that the need for this sort of came from the bottom up to move towards a more organized ICTP global community. And I should give special thanks to Nushka Chamba. She was the student, one of the former students, but she was spearheading this effort. And my colleague here, Professor Paolo Creminelli, whom as you know is a cosmologist, but also the head of the high energy physics section. So and the team that worked together for making this event possible, even though our idea was to maybe we can hold it in person. But hopefully next year we can have an ICTP reunion in person on Trieste campus. And I hope all of you can make it at that time. So let me now quickly move over to a short presentation about ICTP. Of course you are, you know ICTP very well and I don't need to tell you about ICTP, but it's good to remind ourselves about what we stand for and what are the goals and where we would like to go from here. So this is our celebration. As you know, this ICTP was founded in 1964 by the great physicist from Pakistan, Abdul Salam, to enhance international cooperation through science. And it is governed by tripartite agreement between the Italian government UNESCO and IAEA. And as you can see here on this blackboard, students from all over come together to discuss science. And the ICTP postgraduate diploma program, I mean every year this is one of the years when we had this graduation ceremony and I wish we were able to hold this program in person. It's a wonderful experience. Every time I attend this, I always feel sort of reinvigorated about the mission of ICTP because it's a wonderful rainbow of people from all over the world, young scientists preparing for their future career. More than 1,000 diploma students have graduated from 85 countries and 75% have gone on to do or are working towards their PhDs and about a third of them are females. So I think we are beginning to do better in terms of gender balance. About 41, 42% are from Africa, another 42% from Asia and the remaining are from Latin America, 15% and a small fraction from Europe. We have some very prominent alumni, some of them, of course, many, not all of them are included here but these are the people who will be part of the roundtable discussion tomorrow and you will see them there in person. Fredy Cachazzo, who is now a Dyson Chair in Theoretical Physics, Reina Belaires, Toya Paul Rapapa, Mabuba Diagni and Rondrutiana Barimalala. As you can see, they are now have done, some of them are minister Rapapa, he's a minister in Bezoto. Professor Reyes is a professor, Fredy Cachazzo is a professor at Perimeter, Diagni is a vice president in the ECOAS Bank and Barimalala is with the Department of Oceanography. So you can see that there are diverse careers and people have done ICTP's program has had really a big impact around the world. Now, of course, about 70% of our students enroll in PhD programs, in fact, some of them actually are absorbed in the Trieste Science System itself at ICTP at CISA, the University of Trieste and there are various PhDs that we offer and now also masters in high performance computing and complex system in medical physics, apart from the PhDs in physics, mathematics, earth systems and fluid dynamics. Now, as you know, the mission of ICTP has two foundational pillars. One is, of course, to build capacity in advanced science and to bridge the gap, knowledge divide and to promote international cooperation to make science available to everyone. But the equally important is to conduct world-class research at the frontiers of science and they both sort of help each other and this dual mandate is what makes ICTP unique. I think there are not many, perhaps not any other universities in the world which do the same in the same level of impact and many of you have graduated from here. So you know that we have five major sections which you're all familiar with. The quantitative license is the new entrant to this, to the existing five and they also have started a new diploma program starting recently and the applied physics program now has been reorganized as a science technology and innovation unit. And as I said, intellectual excellence is fundamental to ICTP and to all of you because you want to go where the best science is done. And as you know, ICTP has claims to the five has contributed directly or indirectly to four Nobel Peace Prize, physics prizes and one Nobel Peace Prize. It's stuck, it's not moving. Can you move the slide please? Okay, okay. So now one of the important aspects of ICTP's approach is that our engagement with all of you and this is why we are here and I really want you to, I'm looking forward to new ideas from all of you and to be able to help us do our mission in a better way, deliver our own mission better way that ICTP engages with scientists throughout their career. It's not that we just, you do a new diploma program and then you're done. As you can see, many of you, there are several examples. For example, Narayana Dhikari is an example. Perhaps he's an audience who is now a professor in Nepal, but who started as a graduate student, sorry, as a post graduate student and has been an associate. So we keep our engagement throughout the career of a scientist either as when they enter as students at their PhD time through conferences when they visit us here and also as associates and then as senior members who send us back new students and who create new regional cells of ICTP. So that's really the kind of multiplier effect that ICTP is seeking that one person actually corresponds to hundreds of new students. And this is what we have seen in many countries. So and this multiplier effect is really the strength of ICTP. And this is what one of the purposes I think I would like at the end of this three-day meeting, we come up with new ideas to figure out how to make this multiplier effect to work even better so that we can expand our mission more widely and more deeply. Again, next, okay. And as part of this lifelong engagement, as you know, we hold something like 60 conferences. So many of you, even after they go back to their home countries are both somewhere else, they keep coming back to ICTP because we have something like 60 really high-class conferences organized at ICTP, something like 5,000 scientists visit from 145 nations. And in addition, we have hosted activities so something like 1,000 to 2,000 scientists come in hosted activities. And many of the scientists actually come for long-term visits as associates. So in order to, so I became the director two years ago and the new strategic plan for ICTP was approved last year for the next five years. And one of the points that I would like to really emphasize is to how to enhance this, how to really benefit from ICTP's global community. And this is where I need input from all of you. And so I please put your thinking hats and come back with some good ideas. As I said, this need for this global community, I gave the example of Nushkia, but now you will later on hear about our colleagues from Pakistan where they put together the Pakistan ICTP Alumni Association. So this is again an effort to make our community stronger and more connected with each other. And especially in the times of COVID has made us realize that maybe there are new ways of engaging even when you are not coming here in person, maybe we can think of new platforms, new technology in addition to what we, in addition to of course personalized visits are very, very important for science. We really need to discuss physics or discuss science in person, but perhaps we can find ways to multiply this better using new technology. So this is something that I would like you to think about. So as you can see at the top of the pyramid we have a small number of permanent scientists, but by the time you get down to number of students, number of visitors, online training and internet it really has a huge impact. And there are a number of initiatives that are part of the strategic plan is to develop a kind of an international consortium for scientific computing. And this is really important because I think 10 years from now data science, machine learning, all these things are going to be pervasive in all areas of science. And we cannot leave it only to Google and Facebook to take the lead. Training scientists for this purpose is going to be essential. As I said, we started a new diploma. Sorry, I'm probably, how am I doing on time? Okay. Quantum computation, quantum simulation, all this can be part of this consortium. We have started a diploma in quantitative life sciences sort of dealing with these related areas. We are expanding our medical physics. And but broadly we really want to think of ICTP global community both physically and online. And perhaps through membership pages for all of you so that you can connect to ICTP more easily. Some other ideas maybe through local initiatives like the regional centers or alumni associations. So I think this is an opportunity for all of us to, and ICTP would support this, any experimentation that you would like to do in this direction so that we can strengthen our network and make it more broadly available. So I think I'm pretty close to, can you, next slide please, yeah. Okay, I'm close to my presentation. I would now give the floor to Professor Saif Ranjbar Dayami who as you know, I'm sure those of you who were here before know him as, he was the former deputy director of ICTP. But more importantly, he was also the co-founder of this program and I have seen him and many of my colleagues in the high energy section like Josh Thompson, Narayan really giving everything, really spending enormous amount of time to really develop the curriculum, to think about the best ways to get the best students to reach out to all corners of the world. So it is thanks to the efforts of these wonderful colleagues that I have and that we are able to do this. And so I would give this floor now to Saif to say a few words about the history of this diploma program. Thanks Saif, please go ahead. Thank you, Atish. Thank you very much. And I would also like to thank Paolo for inviting me to participate in this nice meeting. Let me see how, this is indeed very pleasant occasion for me to, not only to witness the program after 30 years and so much success, but also see some of the faces of various years of the face of the students of various years of this program. So the idea of course goes back to Salam like every other idea in those days, nice to be. Although the final format that the program took was different from the way that he had thought about. Thanks Salam was a very resourceful person in terms of ideas, almost every day he came, not only with a pile of preprints under his arm and he found all of them interesting, but also the large number of ideas of how we should develop in various directions. He shared the belief that the human curiosity was the main driving force in science and the young girls and boys in developing countries were not less curious or less talented than those in economically and industrially advanced countries. He was unique among scientists at his own rank in the sense that he dedicated a big part of his time and I must add that time is the most valuable capital that the scientist has, but he dedicated a big part of his time to help scientists from less privileged parts of the world and the ISTP diploma program is one of many concrete steps of ISTP services to developing countries. Its concreteness is in fact fitness by the presence of the alumni in this meeting as well as by the numbers that Professor Dobelkar presented about the number of graduates from the diploma program and more importantly the number of PhDs or five, 600 people have obtained their PhDs going through the diploma program of ISTP. Now the program took some time to be actually created. Many discussions went during the 1990s and eventually the program, the diploma program was modeled on a one year diploma program at the Imperial College of London and the format was essentially retained at least in the high energy section until this year. I understand that this year some modifications are going to be implemented. Initially we took students only in high energy and condensed matter physics and this is perhaps the first group photo of the students of condensed matter and high energy physics. Now probably some of you or some of the students of the people present in this picture will actually recognize their teachers. And of course if you are participating you will also recognize yourself. I would like to single out here Ms. Konchetta Mosca. She was one of the three female presence in this picture. She is the one standing next to me if you can recognize me still. And she played an important role. So if you need to share your transparencies. Sorry? Just a minute I think your slides have to be shared. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You need to share the screen I think. Yes, yes I'm trying to do it. I forgot to do it. And for some... No, I think I should... Sorry for that. Is it visible now? Yes, yes, go ahead. Okay. Okay, so this is as I was saying this is the students from the first year probably the oldest picture in which the first year students are all present together. I was talking about Ms. Konchetta Mosca and her contributions about. One year later mathematics was also included. This is a photo of the students of the three sections together and together with some of the people involved in running the program including Professor Salam himself who was of course not involved in running the program. And two people sitting is in his left and right. The one sitting to his left is Professor Lundquist. He was a contest matter physicist from Sweden. I will say a few words about him a little bit later and the one on his right is Professor Narasimhan who passed away unfortunately a few months ago. He had just joined to run the mathematics section of ICTP. One thing which is notable in this picture is the number of female students. You see that it is not very much. I think if I count correctly there are probably five of them all together in three sections. But still for those days it was not small especially considering the fact that they all came from subset of developing countries. The program was expanded a few years later to include climate physics. This is called the Earth System Physics today. And then the quantitative life sciences. And as Professor Dabelkar mentioned there will be other issues too. One thing that this program shared with the diploma program at Imperial College was in fact the only thing they shared was that it was a one-year program. However at Imperial College it's very small subset of students who kept to follow their PhD at the college and then the rest left Imperial College to do their PhDs in other colleges of University of London or other cities in UK or elsewhere. I still did not have this opportunity at the beginning but later on now we have many collaborations of this kind with CISA, University of Trieste and other places. This is a picture which I saw also in the previous presentation of more recent year of a graduation ceremony with many of the colleagues contributing to the program or present here. And one notable aspect of this picture is the increase in the number of female students. We have to take into account that this celebration ceremony many of the students actually leave ICTP. They go to the place where they were obtained an admission for PhD or go back to their home continent. Nevertheless this shows that this gives another an idea of the increase in science. This picture is historical. I have chosen it for one or two reasons. First of all, it's from the second year of the I think opening of the high energy diploma program in which Salam is present. Salam unfortunately is not present in many of the group pictures of the diploma program. Then I mentioned that Lundquiz next to me is Fahim Hussein late Fahim Hussein, unfortunately he played a very important role in setting up the high energy physics diploma program in many respects. He was very close to students but also it was due his experience in teaching. I personally was not experienced in teaching to students of this kind but he had experienced in the university teaching. And all the time he helped us to downsize a little bit the curriculum to a sort of tolerable level. I recently I came across with my notes of quantum field theory that I was teaching in those years. And I was amazed of the volume of the topics that we offer to the students. Fahim helped to actually balance it to a size that could be absorbed by students in one year. Now it's sort of that was an important contribution in my opinion. Lundquiz in that meeting said the phrase which I remembered in the course of preparation of this presentation. And at some extent also what Professor Dabalkar was saying goes along same direction. Lundquiz said to the students that science is not created by you sitting in your office and contemplating all by yourself. You must go out and interact with other people. This was if you probably the students understand the meaning of this sentence, especially the one they come from various parts of the world with different cultural background, et cetera and different conception of all science. At the idea of Salam and people like Lundquiz especially Salam himself was actually to create an environment for the interaction between scientists from all over the world. Salam himself was a very good example of that. If you look at the scientific papers you'll see that most of them in fact a large portion of them are collaborative papers. And he deeply believed in that and that he was created precisely with that point in mind. Several years later in the course of preparation of the talk, I came across what's called a note map. A note map. A note map which shows the, you see in this picture you see United States, Canada, Japan and some European countries. The density of lines around each note gives an idea of the scientific collaboration between that country and other countries in this picture. And this is from 96 to 2000. This has been prepared by British Royal Society who repeated the same study between 2004 and 2008. And if you compare the two, you will see that there is sort of noticeable change in the density of lines around various countries. In fact, a little concentration on it will show that many of the countries in Europe have become denser in terms of these lines. Of course, one reason is that the progress in the technology which enables the scientists to interact in much more extensive way. One can ask of course the question, how much ISP has contributed to the interconnectedness? This was partially answered in the previous presentation by the director of ISP. As far as I know, there is no quantitative study of this or not even a qualitative study of the kind that I'm showing here. But taking into account of over 5,000 scientists who visit ISP every year from all over the world plus the manifold of ISP programs, associates, three ISP branches, conferences, schools and many other programs, I think that it will be very sizable. It will be very important. In fact, it will be very important to maybe to have some thoughts about this and make it sort of more visible that the outcome could be quite impressive, in my opinion. So the scientists coming to ISP not only talk to each other, but they also end up enjoying research projects. I know by experience, by direct observation, many scientists from developing countries have gone to scientific visits to advanced countries simply through getting in contact with people by their participation in various activities of ISP. The program, despite its relatively small size, has contributed to this process. I think actually it has contributed quite a lot as mentioned by, again, by Professor Dabelkar. This program somehow has a holistic feature as George Thompson likes to call it. And not only people come and participate in the program, their students also later on are sent by their teachers. That means the previous diploma students to participate in this program. In recent years, I am still teaching, by the way, in recent years, in fact, this is very noticeable. I notice it almost every year. But still many years of flourishing is still ahead of this program. And I'm sure in the next 30 years celebration or it's 50 years celebration, the program has expanded much more than what it has done so far. I must mention that a lot of people have contributed in the creation of this program. Because of the shortness of time, I couldn't go through the names. In fact, apart from Pahim, I did not mention any other name, but this should not be an indication of negligence. It's simply, there's no time because the number of people, essentially all the scientific staff and in the early years, it was mostly the affair of, of course, the high energy, condensed matter, and mathematics section. Many people in this section, in these sections who are still around or who have retired, did make substantial contributions. Later on, new generation of ISP staff, like Paolo, for example, who is running this activity, made enormous amount of contribution to the program. So I think my time is over and all is left for me to say is, thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thank you very much. Safe. I was looking at the chat and somebody wrote, Professor Safe, you are always great. You will always remain the best professor you ever taught me. So I think this is a good, good thank to... Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Safe. Thank you. Okay, so maybe I should introduce myself. I am Paolo Creminelli and some of you probably know me. I was the coordinator of a diploma until last year. So you're probably wondering what is an icebreaker activity and now you're going to find out what it is. So it's a way to play a bit together and to feel that we are a bit closer. Of course, we would like people to visit and to be in Budinich like us, but it's not possible. Hopefully it will happen in the future. So we're going to play a bit like a game. So if you can put the millimeters slide. Okay, so you have to follow me, all right? So you have to go to a website which is called www.menti.com. Now it will come. You can use these on your phone or your laptop or your iPad, whatever you want, but please do not close the Zoom session. So this will be something that we play with why we are connected to Zoom, okay? I don't see the slide of the Mentimeter. We'll take it a bit, okay. Okay. Okay, so you see the slide. So you go to this website, www.menti.com and the only thing that you will be asked is the code. Okay, so you put this code which is written there. I can read it for you. It's 39941860. Yes, maybe somebody can share it also in the chat. Somebody is asking. Okay, maybe I read the code again, just in case. 39941860. Okay, so I wait for people to connect. So we are going to ask you questions. Everything is anonymous, so don't be shy. Anyway, it will be funny, hopefully. Okay, so I wait for people to connect. It's okay, I can change the slide here. Okay, okay, let's wait a couple more minutes. So I just wanted to prepare. The first question, you have a very limited amount of time. It's just to check if you are awake or at least that you know something basic about ICTP. So be prepared. Then there will be a bit more serious questions later on. Okay, I see that 50 people connected. A lot of hearts coming out of different colors. Okay, let's wait one minute more. Numbers are going up. Yes, so I see that there are more or less 200 participants. So let's see if half of them can connect to a millimeter. 85, okay. Still going up, a lot of hearts, a lot of hearts. Okay, I think, okay. At least we can start with the first ones. Anyway, you can also join later. So let's go with the first question. So you have 30 seconds to answer this question. Who is the present director of ICTP? Okay. Okay, let's see if you pay some attention in the last half an hour. Okay, you're doing good. Very good, very good. You're doing very well. There is, okay, five people voted for George Clooney, but they were probably confused by the picture because Attish looks very similar. Seven actually, more confused. One is left to be very beginning of ICTP voting for Abdul Salam, or maybe saying that Abdul Salam will always be the director. And six, seven of them, seven participants are left with Fernando Quevedo that maybe is connected. So we say hi to the previous director, Professor Fernando Quevedo is now in Cambridge. Very good. Okay, so this was just to warm up. So let's go to the second question. Okay, so this is a bit more difficult. So you have to, depending on the size of your screen, but you have to select where you are from so that we see how distributed we are in the world. That's nice. Very nice. You can see the screen, so the dots are very nice. Yeah. Very nice. There is somebody in, I don't know, I'm not even sure what is the name of this island close to Australia. Very nice. Okay, we have a lot of friends in India, a lot of in Iran, a lot of people are here in Trieste. Africa is growing. So Pakistan is. Very nice. Very nice. Yeah, this is Iran, Pakistan. Very nice. So the distribution, we still need somebody from, well, now we have almost all countries. We need some Chilean to join. Very good, very good. But I think this nice description of the distribution of the ICTP diploma program around the world. So of course, many people came back to their own countries, some are in other countries and we are spread all over the world. So now I am saying, I cannot see Trinidad and Tobago. It's too small. Okay. Yes, now it's true. This was, it's already an issue for Italy, so. Okay, so let's go to the next slide. In which year did you receive your ICTP diploma program? So you have to write four digits, okay? So the time when you received your graduation, so the second year if you want, when you get the diploma. Very nice. So the bigger, okay. Now 2015 is winning at the moment. Isheri, you are 2015. Ah, no, so you're not, 2020 is winning. Rodrigo Castillo saying, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, 2017 is growing. Good, good. Very nice, very nice. I think we see that the younger generations are a bit more active with the Mentimeter. Somebody graduated here, zero, zero, zero, zero. 1940. Not yet, not yet. There is somebody that says not yet. 1945 appears. Somebody, 2022. So they were good. There are also somebody connected that will graduate next year. That's nice. So the new students are coming actually in a few days, in a couple of weeks. So they're arriving. Very nice, very nice. So I think almost everybody voted. I'm afraid the winner is, maybe is this year, basically, which makes sense. Actually, this will be also the graduation. On Wednesday, we will have the official graduation of the 2021 program. So we will have the students here in Budinich. Very nice. Okay, let's go to the next. Okay, somebody is very quick. So you have to vote. You have to guess the year of the picture. Let's see. This is a bit more difficult. Well, okay, most people are guessing. Yes. Yes, very good. This is then 1992 is the second year of the diploma. And I think safe is behind the bar at the moment, but it's there. There is a salam, a new twist, and the faim in the back. That's good. Good. It's 1992. Good job. So let's go to the next. There will be three of them to guess. So there will be another diploma year now. You ready? Hey, yes. We have seen this picture in the previous top. Yes, it was a suggestion. You also saw the director before the first question. So let's go to the next dive. Okay, it is more recent. Now we have the colors, there are new professors. Am I around? I don't know. Yes, I am there. Very young, with a lot of hair. We were all young. Yes, 2010. 2010, I see Fernando Quevedo was the director. Yes, good. I think it's too easy. By the way, let me say that on Wednesday, we'll have another section of questions with many meters, so be prepared. More difficult questions will come. Spot, Professor Cremielli, yes. Yes, I am on the far right. Good, let's go to the next one. I think unfortunately it will be very easy. Unfortunately, let's see. We can move to the next slide. Yes, so this is, you can guess which year we took this picture. I find that it's moving the face of these students in the first row. Unfortunately, last year, the diploma ceremony was really limited in number. So diploma students were here, so although, so everything went on, but it was very said, well, it was, we will know about COVID. So there is somebody which is very pessimistic about the future and the things that in 2031 there will be still the pandemic will go on. We hope not, okay? We hope not. Okay, so this was easy. I think we have the last question for today. Let's move to the next one. No, there are two more. So this is, again, you have to type whatever comes to your mind when you think about ICTP and again, we will see that the words which are more common will become bigger and bigger on the screen. Well, science stays there, it's pretty big. Let me see. Addus Salam, friends, love, okay. Passion, good. Unity, that's very nice. A diploma connected, okay. Scientific hub, dream, family, diversity. That's very nice. We can use it as a scream for the future. It's very nice. That's really very nice. It's very nice because that's really what people are thinking about. Scientific in the world, science in the world. Somebody still says 2009. Okay, probably thinking about the diploma back then. Italy, that's nice. Cappuccino, Rome, UNESCO, okay. Very nice, very nice. We should take, I hope we can save this picture. Can we save this picture in some way? We can, yeah, yeah, okay, it will be recorded so we can take it, very nice. Dream, I like somebody, Plasma, somebody. An academic heaven, very nice. Happiness, a temple of learning. Cappuccino, there is Cappuccino. Cappuccino is a good thing. Rodrigo says Cappuccino. Ciao, Rodrigo. Very nice, very nice. Thank you. I mean, it's a joke, it's a game, but I think it contains some information. It's nice to see this community. Meaning word. Okay, let's go for the last, I think the last slide. Yes, this is a real question. Is to check how many ICTP alumni are in contact with. And one purpose of these activities to foster a community, to foster a connection. Also when you leave ICTP, and it's nice to see if you remain in contact. Okay, so somebody lost a bit of contact or maybe just a couple of close friends that remained connected. Some is super well connected, more than 15. Nuschka says organizing this event has driven me reconnect with so many alumni. So we should have a column just for Nuschka more than a hundred. Yeah, more than a hundred, I think that's right. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for playing with us. I think it was nice. I think it was a way to connect and to see that there are people there. And we're going to do it again on Wednesday with new questions and something a bit more serious, maybe. Very good. So now we move to the talk by Imrana. So let me introduce briefly Imrana Ashraf. She's an associate professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Kaidah-e-Azam at Islamabad in Pakistan. And she's also an ICTP associate. She's a good friend of ICTP. She visits ICTP as a student, as an associate, as a tutor, as a trail fellow, as a lecturer for the winter activity in optics. She's a well-known physicist in optics. And she was one of the first women to win the ICO ICTP prize in optics in 2004. She was also one of the four recipients of the 2017 Spirit of Salam, Abdul Salam Award. But now she's not here to talk about her great science, not today. She's here to talk about her experience in building a network in Pakistan. And so we think that it can be for us a role model. So please, I welcome Imrana Ashraf. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Paolo. Thank you, Adish. Okay, so I think it's on. Okay, so today, my name is Imrana, as Paolo mentioned, I'm from Pakistan. I'm a senior associate at ICTP. Today, I would like to share with you the foundation and goals and aims we want to achieve under this Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society. So the layout of my talk, like any other talk, is the motivation behind this foundation, our mission statement, which is not never complete. We have many missions, which we want to accomplish under this Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society. Brief introduction to the founding members, then the registered members of a Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society. We have identified a group of focal person from each field. The activities we have organized so far and the community engagement and forthcoming activities. So motivation, like most of the participants or affiliates from that visit to ICTP in one capacity or another are from developing work. So scientific community working in the developing world cases many challenges. It can be the isolation from the vibrant international community. It can be lack of funding in struggling economy, non-existent of teaching and research laboratories, outdated curriculum, which really need to be modified in many schools and colleges back home, access to the lack of access to the latest pedagogical tool for teaching and learning, fewer national or international collaboration. So the foundation of PIAs can be considered as advanced path of active learning in optics group, which is a self-funded program established in January, 2016, under the umbrella of ICTP and Department of Physics Kaidiaatum University, Islamabad. It brings physical science to traditionally underprivileged girls high school, colleges and university to provide an enriching science experience in a very friendly atmosphere. We have organized under this group, we have organized many one day outreach activities to support and encourage girls student to pursue careers in sciences. These activities were mostly done with school and colleges of Islamabad and its twin city, Ravel Pindi. In 2019, we extended these activities to the neighboring province of Khabar Pakhtun Khan. So this is, for us it was the stepping stone to move towards Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society. So Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society would like to extend the scope of active learning in optics activities all across Pakistan and eventually make it to a regional society in association with ICTP. This is a picture from one of the outreach activity back in 2019, when Professor George Thompson and the central was there visiting another activity at National Center for Physics. And you can see the smile, these dry friction glasses are bringing on seventh and eighth grader of a government school and Professor George Thompson and central they are also enjoying these holographic and diffraction glasses provided by ICTP, SPI and OSA. Okay, so Pakistan ICTP Alumni Society aims to further the mission of the Salam International Center of Physics and establish a vibrant STEM teaching and research community working in Pakistan. So we want to establish an ICTP Alumni work that can organize social and scientific STEM activities to bridge the gap between young and experienced researchers. And we hope to avail a success in a mutual learning experience in Pakistan and at ICTP. We want to nurture research collaboration internationally and among the National Institute of Pakistan the society aims to facilitate the researchers by setting up collaborations with both national and international scientists at ICTP. This initiative will lead to the quality of research projects and research students produced within Pakistan. So another aim is like in active learning and optics and photonics group. We also want to organize scientific outreach activities. And in line with Professor Abdul Salam's vision, we hope that the ICTP alumni will volunteer for this effort by offering their time and their skills. Through this forum, we plan to do teachers training workshops and possible revision of basic curriculum, which is the need of art. The society aims to provide career and vocational mentorship for research students, young and mid-career scientists for their professional career. So these are the brief introduction of the founding members. I'm included. Professor Joseph Tamella is our international scientific advisor from ICTP. Dr. Rahil Ali is from Tideasum University, Islamabad. Dr. Jahan is also an ICTP associate and winner of ICO ICTP award in 2016. He's from Hazara University, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Dr. Negum Arshad is from University of Education Lahore. Mr. Abdul Rahman is my PhD student. He was here as a trail fellow and left for home last one. So we're members affiliation with ICTP. So far we have 130 registered members and some of them are senior associate, some postdoctoral fellows, ICO ICTP award winners, pale fellow associate diploma, alumni and visitors. And if we divide it into gender, so there are 32 females registered member of Pakistan ICTP alumni society and 108 are male members. And their present affiliation is that 22 of these members are affiliated with private sector, 37 are affiliated with the public sector institute and 71 are settled abroad. And on the Pakistan map, you can see that there are three from Balochistan, four from Sin and 60 from Punjab, which also include the capital territory Islamabad. And as we all know that there are many visitors to ICTP from Islamabad and it's Twin City, it's Ravel Pindi. There are eight from KPK and two from Kashmir. So these are the focal list of a focal person we identified for the different fields. In lizard and quantum optics, Dr. Javed Akram is from Palm Sets Institute in Islamabad. Dr. Rahil Ali is from Kaidiazim University, Islamabad. Dr. Jahan Akbar is from Hazara University in Mansera, which is Mansera is a city in Khyber Pakhtunfa. On condensed metaphysics, we have Dr. Kashif Savi from Kaidiazim University, Islamabad. Dr. Kalsum Rahim, she is from the University of Engineering and Technology, Texla. In plasma physics, we have Dr. Vikas Masood, who is also an ICTP associate. He works in ComSets and Dr. Shahid Ali is presently based in National Center for Physics. In biomedical and biochemistry, basically Dr. Samina Khalid is based in Mirpur, is teaching in Mirpur University and Dr. Saima Kalsum is in International University, International Islamic University, Islamabad. In material science and mathematics, we have Dr. Rafat Kattasen, who is based in Blochistan. Dr. Shakth Ali is working at Ghulam Sakhan Institute in high-energy physics. We have Dr. Jamil Aslam, who is also from Kaidiazim University, Saimaabad. Dr. Adnan Bashir is an old alumni of Kaidiazim University and the student of Parvez Hoodbhai. And he is based in Mexico. Dr. Montezer Abdi is also a diploma alumni and presently he is a postdoc fellow in Switzerland. In environmental science, we have Dr. Adnan Abid, who is a former diploma alumni, as well as now he's doing a postdoc at ICTP with Professor Fred. Dr. Montezer Ishwal is from, he's based in the USA and he's also from environmental sciences. In quantum information and quantum computation, we have Dr. Aisha Khalid. She is from National University of Science and Technology Islamabad. Dr. Nigam Ashad is from University of Education Lahore and Dr. Mohamed Faryad is also an ICTP award winner and he is from Lahore University of Management Sciences. So these are the focal persons that agree to support different activities and organize these short courses in their respective fields. And we have decided to do these courses bilingually so that every student can understand it in a better way if it will be in Urdu mixed with English so it will be more understandable for many students. So the activities we have organized so far is, the first is the inaugural session that we formally inaugurated on January 26, 2021. Our chief guest for this virtual ceremony, but the chief guest was his Excellency Andres Ferraris, Ambassador of Italy to Pakistan. He welcomed the initiative and assured the participants that Italian Embassy will help and support the society to achieve its aims. Professor Atish Devolkar, ICTP director in a special video message, congratulated founding members on setting up a piazz within a short time and acknowledged the need of such platforms to bring together scientists and researchers. Professor Joseph Namella appreciated effort of joining hands to help each other at the scientific community in Pakistan. He shared his association with Pakistan, the outreach activities he has been part of over the years extended his support for the society. So these are the images of photos of his Excellency, Professor Atish Devolkar and Joseph Namella. So these are the few visuals that I will try to pass quickly. And Professor Joseph Namella spoke about the different scientific programs at ICTP and he shared his view about the society. And so after three days of inauguration, it was the 29th of January and it is Salam's birthday. So Piazz has celebrated Professor Salam on the 95th birthday. So Professor Fiazzatine was his PLT student. He sent in a special message to be read out further, read out by the participant of the session. He highlighted Salam's concern for promoting physics and his significant contribution to develop the scientific and technology vehicles infrastructure in Pakistan. Our keynote speaker was Professor Hood Boy who talked about Salam's journey from an outstanding student of ruler Punjab, his exceptional research at Cambridge as a graduate student to finally winning the Nobel Prize in physics. He shared Salam's deep love and commitment to Pakistan and its scientific community. So these are the photographs of Professor Fiazzatine. He's in Canada and Professor Hood Boy, I think I said he is familiar with him. And these are during the visuals of pervades talking about Salam. And then the first outreach, the previous outreach activity we were doing from the Forum of Active Learning and Optics Group. So this first outreach activity of 2021 was organized at Islamabad Model College for girls, a public sector college situated near Kaitiasam University. This college among many other government school colleges that remained closed during 2020. So basically those schools, colleges and universities have lost one year of education on one year of knowledge. A full day of learning cannot compensate the loss of one year of knowledge, but a full day of fun with the optics can bring joy for learning. So we were really happy to see those girls interacting with us and they were very curious, but of course they were concerned about their loss of one year of education. So you can see the outreach activity was during COVID and we were following the so peace of this COVID pandemic. 11th of February, we celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. So around 100 undergraduate female students from Pakistan and abroad attended this session. The aim of the session was to create awareness among female students about careers in STEM. Students were encouraged to ask questions, share their opinions related to their respective academic careers. So these are the visuals of that meeting. So we have Dr. Negam, Dr. Shemuna Kasi, Amaria is there presently in UEE, our ex-student, which are now teachers in different women universities and colleges. So this is again my, then we are honored to have two present and previous director of ICTP as our scientific speakers. So Professor Aatesh Devolkar spoke about quantum black poles, their hopping needs, Ramanujan and Professor Fernando Covedo, the previous director spoke about strength theory and the real world. So these are the visuals of Professor Aatesh and these are the visuals from Fernando's talk. Then in March, we, maybe you saw my inclination towards female education. So we organized a special session to emphasize the importance of girls education. The session was unique in a way that we have invited our famous celebrity, Airan Harun Rashid as the guest speaker. He's an international pop star and he produces Pakistan, first full-length, 3D animated series under the name Akurka Adventure. So apart from girls education, it considered many other social issues. So this session was broadcasted live on our social media channels. The participants, including students from primary classes asked question and took part in discussion. This Burkha venture has been translated in many languages and even it was allowed to show in Afghanistan, which I doubt no more. So this is Airan Harun Rashid and many participants were from Maria Yuzal is past SPI president. Professor Jean Paul is the scientific director of UNESCO, Ms. Hanan Davidar was also present during this session. So it was a big success for female education. The other distinguished speaker we have invited so far are Venderle Salvador Benyato, a very good friend and a very good scientist from University of Saipaolo, Brazil. He spoke about Bose Einstein condensation and the investigation of computer templates. Mohammad Faryad is from Lahore University of Management Sciences. He spoke about quantum computers, principles and its application. Professor Fred Kichurasky is based at ICTP. He spoke about David and Goliath tropical Atlantic influence on South Asian monsoon and Indo-specific oceans. So I think that you will find some. This is Venderle Salvador Benyato, a familiar face for ICTP optics community. And this is Faryad. He's the winner of ICICTP award. This is Professor Fred discussing his field of specialization with the participants. Again, Professor Fred. The other distinguished speakers are most Mothism Ishfaq. He's based in USA. He works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA Climate Change in South Asia, well-known, but not well understood. Professor Joseph Namella is a senior scientist at ICTP. He spoke about heating up turbulence near absolute zero. Babare Kureshi is from Institute of Business Administration, Tarachi, Pakistan. He spoke about quantum structure of space time and symmetry. This talk we held before at this talk in high energy physics so that student can follow the basic first and then the advanced topics. Sandro Skandolo discussed the matter at extreme conditions from planetary interiors to new materials. OK, these are the visuals. Joseph Namella, climate change in South Asia, the Mothism stock. Then it is Sandro's talk. You can see Sandro on the right top corner. And this is Dr. Babar, who is in the Institute of Business Administration in Tarachi. And then we have this community engagement. All activities are advertised via Pias Fokalpersons email and our social medias. I also share all advertisements with our associate page at ICTP, social media, and also with the public information office at ICTP. All sessions are streamed live via Facebook. So far, we have almost 1,400 people that follow or like Pias via the official Facebook. So then these are some international newsletter. Most of them are about our activities under active learning and optics. This was an article. The first is an article researcher, teacher, mentor in ICTP Newsletter in 2017. Then there is a letter in APS Newsletter. It was the Bringing the Joy of Scientific Inquiry to Girls in Pakistan. The third in July 2019 is there is always light around the corner in ICU Newsletter, which is International Commission of Optics Newsletter. And then a recent article from ICTP is the new ICTP alumni network in March 2021. And then recently in April, we have another article in ICU Newsletter that is the Let the Light Be Always On. It mentioned the activities we did during pandemic. OK, so this is Professor Nemela's very famous research article he wrote for the Nature Communication. It's Physics for a Better World. And I would like to share this photo. It was taken by Professor Joe when he was visiting 2016 in Pakistan. And these are our undergraduate students. And when somebody asked me, why girls? And look at this image. And it's so beautiful. Why not girls? So and these are our founding members. And thank you. I think I'm on time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your contagious enthusiasm and banana. Thank you. So you're perfectly on time. So now we're going to take a coffee break. Unfortunately, we are not able to send you a couple in B to your office. So you have to brew the coffee yourself. But let me remind you that during the coffee breaks, as well as half an hour before the day of the conference and half an hour after the end of the main session, there is this platform called Wander Me. You can just click. There is a link on the program. And you will find yourself with your avatar. And you'll be able to chat with your friends. So it's very easy to use. And it should replace the typical coffee break in which you go around and you say hi to all the new friends. So you find the link on the program. And otherwise, we reconvene at 3.30. And we'll have the talks by Professor Bajinghe Itze and Professor Shubana Narasimhan about diversity and barriers in science and about gender discrimination. So I see you at 3.30. And we meet also in Wander Me during the coffee break. Thank you.