A ground-breaking symposium aimed at fostering collaboration of knowledge exchange in the local scientific community was held on March 08th, 2024, at the Mount Irvine Bay Hotel. The four-day symposium was a partnership between The UWI, St Augustine Campus, Sound + Science Inc., and the Simons Foundation.
The Campus received a generous grant from the Simons Foundation. Professor Shirin Haque was the project lead on the project titled “Caribbean Future of Science Symposium”. Professor Haque chaired the Local Organising Committee and the International Scientific Organising Committee, which included Trinidadian diaspora, Professor Stephon Alexander of Brown University and Everard Findlay as Chief Strategist from EIME Corporation in the USA. The 2016 Nobel laureate in physics, Sir Michael Kosterlitz, was in attendance and gave the public lecture at the event.
The discussions and presentations covered a wide array of topics such as scientific entrepreneurship, the role of AI in the region and globally, music technology, astrophysics and cosmology, quantum physics and inclusion in science, presented by world-famous blind Astronomer Dr Wanda Diaz Merced, who also held a workshop on multi-sensorial teaching with teachers in Tobago.