Your excellencies, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen I stand here humbly, having travelled from the Southern tip of the great continent of Africa. Such long flights are always emotional for me as I pass over country after country without being able to see from the sky where one nation ends and another begins. Each country with […]
Author Archives: Ram Venugopal
On 13 October 2015, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) inaugurated the South West Asian OAD Regional Office at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO) in Armenia. The inauguration ceremony included talks from Radik Martirosyan, President of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia; Piero Benvenuti, IAU General Secretary; and Areg Mickaelian, director of […]
FM 20: Astronomy for Development The OAD coordinated a Focus Meeting (FM20) at the 2015 IAU General Assembly titled “Astronomy for Development.” The meeting took place on 13-14 August 2015. Please visit www.astronomy2015.org for more information. Overview This Focus Meeting was about the global developmental impact that all aspects related to astronomy can deliver. It focused on impact […]
The International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) has established new coordinating offices in Armenia, Colombia, Jordan, Nigeria and Portugal. Supporting the use of astronomy as a tool for development in specific regions and languages, the new partnerships form part of the IAU’s decadal strategic plan — which aims to realise the […]
The OAD shared a booth with the Office of Astronomy Outreach at the IAU General Assembly 2015 in Honolulu, Hawaii. For two weeks, we coordinated all our activities from the stand. It acted as the meeting point for our global network and for several Astronomy for Development discussions. Our team, along with the OAO, explained the […]


