Inaugural Conference for the Southern and Eastern Africa Network of Analytical Chemists

doi:10.1515/ci.2003.25.2.30b

Article Publicly Available

Inaugural Conference for the Southern and Eastern Africa Network of Analytical Chemists

Published/Copyright: September 1, 2009

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information

From the journal Chemistry International -- Newsmagazine for IUPAC Volume 25 Issue 2

_

Inaugural Conference for the Southern and Eastern Africa Network of Analytical Chemists

7—10 July 2003, Gaborone, Botswana

Since 1999, the analytical chemistry section of the University of Botswana has annually organized twoday international analytical chemistry workshops in the month of February. In the last workshop, held on 25-27 February 2002 and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), delegates representing 13 universities from 11 African countries agreed that a pool of African expertise familiar with issues relating to the African continent be established. This led to the formation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Network of Analytical Chemists (SEANAC). The main aims and objectives of SEANAC are as follows:

(a) to create a database for providing information on human and physical resources in the field of analytical chemistry, particularly those available in the Africa region

(b) to promote analytical chemistry in the southern and eastern Africa region through collaboration, research, research training, teaching and information sharing

(c) to facilitate inventory, access, operation, maintenance, and repairs of analytical equipment

(d) to collaborate with local and international organizations with similar aims

The SEANAC inaugural conference aims to provide a platform for African chemists to interact, exchange information, and network among themselves and with international scientists. These goals will be achieved by dedicating two days prior to the conference for workshops in sample handling, chromatographic techniques, data handling methodologies, presentations of scientific results, and mentoring on issues of writing successful research proposals. Experts, including Drs. Ron Majors and Stuart Cram of Agilent Technologies, will offer such workshops. The workshops will target graduate students, academics, chemists, and technicians already working in industry.

With the help of keynote speakers such as Profs. Darmia Barcelo (II QAB CSIC, Spain), Lo Gorton (Univ. of Lund, Sweden), Erno Lindner (Univ. of Memphis, USA), James Holcombe (Univ. of Texas at Austin, USA), Jorge Torresdey (University of Texas at El Paso, USA), Prof. Luc Nagels (RUCA, Belgium), and Omowunmi Sadik (SUNY-Binghamton, USA), the conference program will seek to demonstrate and facilitate the application of analytical chemistry in the crucial areas of health, food security, and the environment. Plenary lectures will be published in Pure and Applied Chemistry and the rest of the papers presented will be published in a special issue of the journal Talanta following the normal review process.

After the conference, delegates will have an opportunity to visit the northern part of Botswana which is home to the world's largest inland delta, the Okavango Delta. This is also home to more than 40 000 elephants, and within 70 km of the Victoria Falls.

See Calendar for contact information

www.ub.bw/departments/science/seanac.pdf

Published Online: 2009-09-01

Published in Print: 2003-03

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2003.25.2.30b