Scientific Symposium: Young Scientific Program Under Lower Mekong Initiative

Under the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) young scientific program, a 2-day annual scientific symposium began on Thursday in Yangon.

The objective of LMI young scientific program is to create a research community of practice annually targeting up to 34 young researchers across Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, to develop capacity for joint research projects through workshops and networking events.

Director, LMI Young Scientific Program, Jose A. Quiroga said “The program has three components. One is four-week program where we hosted in different cities in one of these five countries. And the second component is where we having today the scientific symposium-we bring back all of the students from the different years of the program to present some of their projects and research and network. And there is the third component of the program which is a seed grant. So, these participants can submit the proposal to be funded $15,000 USD to continue working on the project.”

The projects are to solve some of the common challenges in the region that regard to water, energy, environmental sustainability, health and entrepreneurship. According to the theme of this year “Public health and Bioinformatics”, the projects to help public health sector are also being displayed in this 2-day LMI young scientific symposium from 2nd to 3rd of December.

Group Representative, Dengue Prevention and Control Alliance Project, Sam OI Kong said “I hope if it can run well, I think it will really effective to the not only the others but mostly for young children in primary schools, secondary schools or high schools mostly. And they can run this project or we can train them how to use it, how to protect themselves, how to know the basic cause of mosquito increase in the community.”

This is the 2nd time of the program. The 1st time was held in Ho Chi Minh city with the topic ‘water, energy and sustainability’. The 3rd one is set to be held in Thailand with the theme ‘innovation and entrepreneurship’.