Call for Workshop Proposals

EAI International Conference on Innovations and Interdisciplinary Solutions for Underserved Areas

March 8-9, 2020 in Nairobi, Kenya

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, publishes in international journals, and incentivize members of the community to initiate interdisciplinary research projects that address needs.

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.

The conference will host workshops addressing the diverse interests of its audience (please see topics below).

We hereby invite you to submit a workshop proposal on a research topic relevant to the Intersol2020 audience. Presentations delivered during the workshops are based on papers that have been selected through a peer- review process. Accepted workshop papers are included in the Conference Proceedings. Please read the call for papers for details.

Conference topics

The works that will be presented at this year’s conference will focus on the following topics:

Building disaster resilience to extreme events: translating the local to global
Land use transitions and spatial modelling
Scenarios, complex systems thinking, and multi-criteria decision analysis
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
Environmental justice and role of civil society making resilience equitable
Balancing development and conservation agendas
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

Previous edition workshops

2018 – Kigali “Beyond the Debate: Climate Change as an Economic Opportunity for Africa”

2019 – Cairo “Product Development and Innovation”

Review Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated regarding relevance and anticipated interest.

Submission Guidelines

Workshop proposals should be submitted to the following address Maimouna W. Diouf – [email protected] as a single PDF file containing the following sections:

Title of the workshop
A brief description of the specific technical issues that the workshop will address
The reasons why the workshop is interesting and timely
The intended audience
A tentative composition of the organizing and program committees
A draft call for papers, including the workshop submission deadlines

Important Dates