Regional Offices Activities: OCT-DEC 2021

Andean

• The Office was involved in the organization of the 2nd Workshop on Astronomy Beyond the Common Senses for Accessibility and Inclusion.

Arab

• The office organized, with the Jordanian Astronomical Society (JAS), the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Science (AUASS) and some other Jordanian & Arab institutions, several public lectures, seminars, and courses via Zoom

East Africa

• The office participated in several events in this period – virtual lecture on James Webb Space Telescope, Africa Astronomy forum organized by OAD, and also celebrated World Space Week with ESSTI and Ethiopians Space Science society.
• EA-ROAD along with ESSTI organized ‘NASA space app challenge of 2021’ in Addis Ababa in October 2021.
• EA-ROAD supports the participation of Ethiopia in the ‘Hyperspace Opportunity for Pioneering Education (HOPE)’ youth space education exchange program organized by Chinese and African governments.

East Asia

• In October 2021., on the Science Opening Day of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and CAS organized a series of activities, such as public lecture, real-time broadcast of the lab and on-site experiments to more than 300 people.
• The office is helping to prepare the International workshop “Educational Psychology and Astronomy for Mental health”  Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar 19-21, May 2022

Europe

• The H2020 project SKIES is in progress -the first implementation is planned in Germany, and for the remaining countries between March-May. Several activities have been organised in each country to reach out to the PhD students and perform a more in-depth needs analysis and promote the project.
• The office will host a special session during the European Astronomical Society annual conference in June 2022
• Proposals has been submitted to the EU COST Action and Erasmus+ Coordination partnership on building capacity among astronomers in Europe and globally to work towards the SDGs, and gather and share OAD best-practice.

North America

• The office has seated an  Advisory Council, representing various regions across North America, to help guide/inform future efforts

Portuguese Language

• Participation of PLOAD representatives on two webcasts (Video 1 and Video 2) in the framework of the OruMbya project.

South East Asia

• More astronomy booklets were translated to Laotian language including star maps. And more translation of astronomy booklets to Cambodian and Burmese is underway.
• The first volume of “Astronomical Terms of Thai Sign Language” book has been published in conjunction with the National Association of the Deaf in Thailand (NADT) & the network of schools for hearing-impaired throughout the country. This is an outcome of the “NARIT-IAU100 Inspiring Stars Workshop 2019”

South West And Central Asia

• Areg Mickaelian from the ROAD visited Artsakh for signing a collaboration agreement with Artsakh Scientific Centre.
• A conference for young astronomers organized by BAO, Armenian-Russian University and Saint Petersburg Technological University (Russia)
• Former BAO associate, Armenian OAE-NEC Armine Patatanyan joined OAD team as a Fellow

Southern Africa

• The Pan African School of Emerging Astronomers (PASEA) which was planned for November 2021 has been pushed to October 2022 due to COVID-19.
• The SAROAD attended the GOLab conference in November 2021.

West Africa

• The awardees of the first PAPSSN Mobility Program were announced.
• The office collaborates with the North American ROAD on the SEA Survey project which provides students the opportunity to conduct remote observing with the 0.5-meter Stone Edge Observatory telescope.
• WAROAD participated in the Astronomy Society of Nigeria (ASN) conference held in November, 2021