Lanka to participate in Asian Science Camp in Israel

Five young scientists from Sri Lanka will travel to Israel next week and join 300 counterparts from all over Asia to participate in the most important conference in the world of science for young people.

Jerusalem is hosting the sixth Asian Science Camp (ASC), the most important scientific encounter in the world for young scientists from all over Asia and the Pacific. The science camp or The Summit of Genius, hosted each year in a different Asian country is the initiative of a number of Asian Nobel Prize Laureates in Sciences, who set the goal of creating a platform for promoting the future generation of scientists in Asia and to create links between them that transcend borders and nationalities.

The science camp, organised by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in cooperation with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and ORT network, will be held in Jerusalem during the last week of August.

Most activities will be held on the Hebrew University's Campus and will offer participants an opportunity to learn and discuss physics, chemistry, life sciences and mathematics from the best scientific minds in Israel and around the world.

Three hundred young male and female scientists, aged 17-21, from over 20 delegations, will arrive in Israel from all over Asia and the Pacific, accompanied by senior scientists from their countries who will head the delegations.

The participants will interact with five Nobel Prize Laureates in Sciences from Israel and around the world.

Among them are Prof Aharon Chechanover (medical-chemistry) and Prof Israel Uman (game theory) from Israel, Prof Roger Kornberg (Biology) from the US, Prof Lee Yuan-Ti (Chemistry) from Taiwan and Prof Makoto Kobayashi (Physics) from Japan.

The participants will also hear lectures by 30 top Israeli scientists who are among the leaders in their fields in the world.

The opening event will be held with the participation of the President of the State of Israel and Nobel Laureate, Shimon Peres.

Israel, the host country, will lead with the largest delegation of 35 young males and females who were strictly chosen according to criteria of excellence in science.

Sri Lanka will send a delegations of five young scientists. China, India, Korea and Japan will send the largest delegations to the event.

"The 2012 ASC in Israel will be the largest one held thus far in terms of the number of participants," said Rafael Barak, the Director General of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Barak said Israel, although a small country, is labeled as a powerhouse for scientific-technological innovation and progress, and constitutes an object for study, and esteem for its achievements.