The OAD currently has 11 Regional Offices, hosted in Colombia and Perú, Jordan, Ethiopia, China, Netherlands, United States, Portugal, Thailand, Armenia, Zambia, Nigeria. If you are interested in hosting a Regional Office of Astronomy for Development, please contact OAD Director Kevin Govender at kg@astro4dev.org.

ACTIVITIES

Andean ROAD

  • The Andean Region website is being improved to enable better communication with the community. https://andean.astro4dev.org/
  • The Office has several events planned in 2023: (1) Third Workshop of Astronomy in the Andes, to be held in Bolivia, (2) First Andean Meeting on Astrotourism, to be held in Ecuador

 

Arab LOAD

  • The Arab regional office participated in hundreds of activities during this period, including organization of astronomy lectures for students, supervision of research students, and workshops.
  • The Arab Regional Office & Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, organized six teacher training workshops (Jordan, Syria, Tunisia) with the participation of more than 150 people from 15 Arab countries.
  • The Office’s strategic plan was translated from English to Arabic.The AW- ROAD website is now available in Arabic and English.  

Chinese & East Asian LOAD

 

East African ROAD

  • The 6th East Africa Astronomical Society workshop was conducted in May 2021 in hybrid mode at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. The EAASW was organized by the Open University of Tanzania, the University of Dodoma and East Africa ROAD. 
  • The IAU symposium ‘Dark sky and astronomical heritage in boosting Astro-tourism around the globe’ organized by East African Regional Office and the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute will be held in Ethiopia in 2023.

European ROAD

 

North American ROAD

  • The Regional Office’s strategic plan published its strategic plan that is being translated to French and Spanish. https://naroad.astro4dev.org/strategic-plan/ 
  • The first NA-ROAD project will be ‘Making Astronomy Accessible for All’. This effort will include professional development workshops on the use of Afterglow Access Software. This software resulted from the IDATA project (You can access AgA software at https://www.idataproject.org/, click on the Resources tab), and is browser-based and is accessible free of charge. In addition, the software includes features that make astronomical image analysis more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.

 

Portuguese LOAD

Southern African ROAD

 

South West and Central Asian ROAD

 

South East Asian ROAD

 

West African ROAD

 

  • An All Sky Survey in collaboration with North American ROAD is ongoing with participation of students from various West African ROAD countries. The project is centered on night sky mapping using the Stone Edge Astronomy Observatory Telescope in Chicago remotely.
  • Development of Africa through Radio Astronomy (DARA) practical training took place at the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory for participants from Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana in July 2021.