Sweden India Science Sambandh is making science a conversation starter
New Delhi: Sweden India Science Sambandh was launched in November 21, 2020 as a month-long celebration of science and its activities by the Sweden Alumni Network India chapters of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore along with Developmatrix, commemoratingthe Nobel Week with the Nobel Prize being the most recognized name in science. This year 2020, has been a disruptive year for all; but the global efforts to fight the Covid-19 epidemic, has shown the importance of collaboration and investment Science and education.
The program has already witnessed great participation from academia, alumni of Sweden, young students and researchers with the conclusion of two dialogues in Medicine and Physics in the month of November. The dialogue in Medicine had an invigorating presentation of the Nobel winning discovery of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) by Padma Bhushan awardee Dr Shiv Kumar Sarin of ILBS, Delhi and Swedish renowned Physician Scientist Dr Ola Weiland of Karolinska Institutet. While in the dialogue on Physics, Professor Ulf Danielsson, an expert in the Nobel Prize committee and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Uppsala University in Sweden along with Professor S Shankaranarayanan, from the Department of Physics at IIT Bombay spellbound the audience by beautifully explaining the importance of Black Holes. They went on to give a detailed lecture on how the discovery of Black Holes and its formation by the three Nobel Laureates Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez proves the robust prediction of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
The Sweden India Science Sambandh is continuing with the upcoming activities of the launch of the Science Sheroes series starting with a panel discussion December 12, a Nobel Quiz competition open to all on December 16 and the dialogue in Chemistry on the Nobel winning discovery of CRISPR/Cas9 to be held on December 19.
Women are still underrepresented and undermined in STEM, globally – in India as per latest Department of Science & Technology (DST) research, India has less than 60,000 women out of total 3.42 lakh R&D personnel directly engaged in R&D activities.The program is aiming to address this gender gap with the launch of Science Sheroes Series consisting of a panel discussion on Women in STEM, celebrating the STEMinistas of the Alumni network and a Science Fiction Story writing contest for girls. The upcoming discussion on December 12, 3.30 pm IST; titled Science Sheroes: Women in Scienceis anticipated to have some heated discussions on these issues with panellists being STEMinistas – women who have professionally moulded their careers in diverse fields of STEM like Biotech, Medicine, Technology, Astrophysics and more.
All the activities of the Sweden India Science Sambandh are complementary and open to all basis registration; students attending the dialogues on Zoom get a certificate of participation and there are prizes to be won for the Quiz and the Science Fiction Story writing competitions. The recording of the dialogues and the panel discussion will also be accessible on the Sweden India Science Sambandh’s YouTube channel and social media pages. The Sweden India Science is organised bySweden Alumni Network Mumbai (SANI Mumbai) along with the other SANI Chapters of Delhi and Bangalore and Developmatrix, with the support of the Swedish Institute and the Acharya Institutes.