Call for Tutorial Proposals

INTERSOL 2020 : Call for tutorials

Scope

Today, there is a consensus that complex social-ecological challenges require solutions that are not amenable to separate single-discipline investigation, but require collaboration between many types of traditional disciplines. There is a need for more transdisciplinary practice: where research has a real world impact. This is the essence behind Interdisciplinary Solutions (InterSol); an international conference dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary researches that address people’s needs in underserved areas. It is intended  to (1) encourage innovative interdisciplinary research, development and education that focus on solving problems in underserved areas in Africa and beyond, and (2) create an international research and development community around “interdisciplinary solutions”, which meets annually, publish in international forca, and incentivize members of the community to initiate interdisciplinary research projects that address needs.

Call for tutorial proposals

The fourth edition of the conference (InterSol2020) will be held on March 8-9, 2020 in Nairobi, Kenya. This conference calls for rigorous interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary solutions. The purpose is to highlight the strong voices of African social, natural, and physical scientists. Questions range from the impacts of infrastructure developments, to what is the current state of climate change disaster risk preparedness, and how is this evidence base translated into decision-making processes that result in flourishing biodiversity, and prosperous, meaningful livelihoods.

In addition to the regular research and workshop program, InterSol2020 will feature a tutorial program addressing the diverse interests of its audience: Building disaster resilience to extreme events: translating the local to global; Land use transitions and spatial modelling; Scenarios, complex systems thinking, and muti-criteria decision analayis; Human health and pollution in the total environment; Nature-based and ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change; Ecological infrastructure, green and blue spaces and ecosystem services; The role of Artificial Intelligence in solving Africa’s grand challenges; Challenges and opportunities to curving career attrition of African women in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics); Environmental migration, gender and the food-water-energy nexus; Innovations in adapting to water scarcity and abundance; ICT and innovative connectivity as enabler for sustainable development.

We hereby invite you to submit a tutorial proposal on a research topic relevant to the Intersol2020 audience.

Review Criteria

The decision on acceptance or rejection of tutorial proposals will be made on the basis of the overall quality of the proposal and its appeal to a reasonable fraction of the sustainable development of Africa. In particular, tutorials should satisfy each of the following criteria:

•        the research topic falls in the general scope of the conference.
•        there is a clear focus on a specific technology, problem or application.
•        there is a sufficiently large community interested in the topic.

We expect proposals for the following types of tutorials:

•        Tutorials providing an introduction to smart cities assessment and development.
•        Tutorials introducing Internet of things as enabler for sustainable development.

Additionally, we expect tutorials to have practical parts in terms of examples or preferably exercises / hands-on sessions to be carried out by the participants.

Submission Guidelines

Tutorial proposals should be submitted to the following address Dr Narcisse TALLA TANKAM ([email protected]) as a single PDF file containing the following sections:

• Title and Acronym
• Abstract: up to 300 words.
• Motivation: Present the interest of the proposal to Intersol participants and indicate if the same tutorial has been presented to other similar tutorials for other events?
• Detailed Description: Length (half day maximum), overview of content and schedule, description of learning outcomes, presentation style, tutorial format, prior knowledge required by the attendees;
• Tutorial Material: Overview of the material used for the tutorial.
• Audience: Who and how many people are likely to attend the tutorial session?
• Presenters: Name, affiliation, email address, homepage and short biography.
• Related events (if the tutorial was presented before in a similar form): Link to previous event(s) and materials. The number of attendees of the previous event(s). Why is it relevant to continue the tutorial in 2020?
• Requirements: Audio-visual or technical requirements and any special room requirements (One to two paragraphs).

Accepted tutorials will be required to prepare a tutorial web page containing detailed information about the tutorial content, schedule and organisation. Tutorial organisers are also responsible for the timely production and distribution of all material to be used for teaching the tutorial (slides, notes, technical papers, etc.). In the case of a hands-on tutorial requiring software, it is strongly recommended that tutors place any software prerequisites online for participants to download and install in advance of the start of the tutorial. Additionally, tutors should avoid, as much as possible, depending on live web-based services that could be hampered by unexpected technical issues. All tutors named on the proposal must be registered before the early registration date ends and ultimately attend the conference and participate in the tutorial.  At the discretion of the chairs, tutorials may be cancelled if all tutors have not registered in a timely manner.

Important Dates

Tutorial Chair

Contact: [email protected]

• Narcisse TALLA TANKAM, Higher Teacher Training College Bertoua, University of Ngaoundere, Cameroon.