Città della Scienza at the ASTC annual conference of North American science centres

The annual conference of the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), the North American community of science centers, closes today – Tuesday, October 21 – after three days full of debates and exchange meetings. The annual conference was held this year in North Carolina and saw the participation of 1,700 delegates from North America and all over the world. Among the very young keynote speakers, Saudi Arabian biotechnologist Hayat Sindi, founder of the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity, who spoke of social innovation and the role of women in research and technological innovation; as well as Angelo Vermeulen, a biologist and artist, engaged in several projects that combine technological, ecological and social systems.

The conference was attended by a delegation from Città della Scienza led by CEO Vincenzo Lipardi and the Head of International Relations Anne Marie Bruyas, which has attended important meetings with ECSITE’s European partners and those of NAMES network to pursue projects in the Euro-Mediterranean area, such as the EMME School of Science Communication, training program for science centers and science museums aimed at the creation of professional skills in the field of science communication.

From 2013, Città della Scienza is a member of the important North American network of science centres, that after the fire of March 4, 2013, expressed its sympathy and solidarity to the Neapolitan science centre, by launching an appeal to raise funds in the international community through the program Science Museum Crisis Relief. The ASTC has created for this purpose a partnership with the Italian Embassy in Washington DC to involveorganizations of solidarity and Italian entrepreneurs across North America and all over the world, to seek contributions for the reconstruction of Città della Scienza. The mission was part of the increasingly closer scientific links between Città della Scienza and the that most important institutions of American popular science such as MIT and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.