An exciting day is coming up shortly. Now that MPE2013 has been launched in North America, the next launch will take place in Europe at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on March 5, 2013. The same day will see the launch of the MPE Open Source Exhibition, the outcome of an international competition for modules for a traveling exhibit. The jury for this competition, chaired by Ehrhard Behrends, met in early January, shortly after the deadline for submissions of December 20, 2012, at the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) in Providence, Rhode Island, to decide on the winners of the competition and the modules that will be on view at UNESCO during MPE Day and until March 8. The winners of the competition will receive their prize in Paris during MPE Day.
The MPE Open Source Exhibition will be hosted permanently through the IMAGINARY project at Oberwolfach. Andreas Daniel Matt and his team in Oberwolfach are working hard to install the modules on the Open Source IMAGINARY platform, which has been released in the public domain. Several of the modules will be available in different languages.
In parallel to the modules submitted for the competition, Centre-Sciences (CCSTI) of the region Centre (Orleans-France) is putting together a physical traveling exhibit of a dozen hands-on modules, which will also be on view at UNESCO on MPE Day. While this traveling exhibit can be rented, it is also Open Source, and a description of the modules will be added to the website of the MPE Open Source Exhibition. The MPE Open Source Exhibition is expected to grow in the future; several scientists have already committed to contribute new modules, and we hope that many more will follow.
MPE Day, March 5, at UNESCO in Paris is hosted jointly by the International Mathematical Union (IMU) and UNESCO. It will be opened by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO. In addition to the launch of MPE2013 and the opening of the exhibit, the program will feature a presentation of the film EXIT sponsored by the Cartier Foundation for art. Edward Lungu (Botswana), recipient of the Su Buchin Prize at the 2011 International Congress of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), will deliver a lecture on “Utilizing the environment to manage HIV/AIDS.” In his presentation, Professor Lungu will discuss strategies to reduce the HIV/AIDS epidemic and poverty in sub-Sahara Africa through better treatment, better education and economic development.
MPE Day will be concluded with a panel discussion on the topic “What Can Mathematics Do for the Planet?” Panelists will be MPE researchers, the UNESCO programme specialist in hydrology/tsunamis, and special guest Fanja Rakotondrajao (University of Madagascar).
A public lecture “Climate Models: Mathematical, Physical and Conceptual Models” by Professor Hervé Le Treut, Director of the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, will follow at 18h:30 on the Jussieu campus of the University Pierre-et-Marie-Curie.
Attendance at MPE Day is by invitation. To request an invitation, send a message to Omobolanle Sandey