Emerging from our aim to contribute to the development of life sciences that are beneficial to humankind and our environment by promoting active exchange of biotechnological information, innovation, and new ideas in order to achieve growth and progress for developing nations and the world as a whole, BioVisionAlexandria 2006, an international conference organized in partnership with The World Life Sciences Forum BioVision is to take place in April 2006 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The conference will be a continuation of the tradition that started in BioVision 1999 in Lyon, which aims to bring distinguished speakers in discussions commemorating science and the finest achievements of the human intellect.

The BioVisionAlexandria conference will specifically be attentive to the needs and capabilities of the lesser-developed nations of the world. Cooperation and coordination are essential for advancement; therefore, the conference will strive to foster the sharing of information between developed and developing nations including knowledge management and technology transfer. Its main goal is to promote the active exchange of ideas and innovative pathways in order to benefit the global community at large.

The event will be initiated with a “Nobel Day”, as successfully done in both BioVisionAlexandria and BioVision in Lyon in previous years. The Nobel Day will be dedicated to Nobel Laureates and will honor the scientists whose vision and perseverance in the quest for scientific innovation have transformed our world. This prestigious event which gathers some of the greatest minds worldwide will be followed by the three-day BioVisionAlexandria 2006 conference.

The conference will focus on 3 main themes:

• Health Discoveries
• Agri-food and Environment Discoveries
• From Discoveries to Delivery

Cross-border higher education is expanding in many parts of the world, taking on a variety of forms and bringing along both opportunities and risks. Discussions over cross-border education have been increasingly focusing on appropriate ways to govern this activity at the international level. In the BA, the International Association of Universities (IAU) will hold a unique event divided into two parts. First, the Global Meeting of Associations will be held, where heads of national, regional and international associations of universities will be invited to discuss cross-border education and review possible actions and services they can develop to support and implement the principles and recommendations contained in the policy Statement "Sharing Quality Higher Education Across Borders". Second, the International Conference will bring together university and other institution leaders, as well as Association leaders who attended the earlier Meeting of Associations. The focus will remain on cross-border education as an important and growing aspect of internationalisation of higher education.

The Regional Scientific Committee for Arab States of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, together with the Arab African Research Center in Cairo, CODESRIA and the Swedish Institute in Alexandria are organizing a Conference on Academic Freedom.

The question of intellectual and academic freedom has been central to Arab and African intellectuals’ debates since the eighties of the last century. Due to recent global changes, and their regional and national socio-economic and political impact, the phenomenon of intellectual and academic freedom has gained new dimensions, possibilities and constraints, which calls for more debates and studies. Thus, the “African-Arab Conference on Intellectual and Academic Freedom” is a timely event for African and Arab intellectuals to re-investigate the phenomenon in its recent context and dynamic network of relations with other global and national processes. The outcome of such a conference is not only to promote the understanding of the phenomenon intellectually, but also to help Arab and African intellectuals to identify future strategies for achieving intellectual and academic freedom.

A two-day conference is planned to take place in May 2005. It focuses on the landmark events in social sciences where a selected group of international scholars will outline major emerging issues in the development and use of sociological knowledge.

The BA hosted an event to bring together a cross-section of North African society to discuss ideas and opportunities that would lead to the development of a strong and prosperous Africa.

Around 100 participants from five North African countries attended the three-day event.

Representatives of the civil society in the five North African countries worked together with delegates and commissioners from the international community throughout the three days of the North Africa Regional Consultation. Participants from around the world presented a report on developmental solutions in the African Continent to the Commission for Africa. The report is to be later submitted to the countries of the G8 and the European Union (EU). The report took stock of present global political and cultural circumstances and mainly concentrated on the fundamental actions that the G-8 and the EU could effectively undertake, and that would make a profound difference in the development of Africa.

The work groups concluded their report with the hopeful statement: “We are ready to do our part. We look to the condition of Africa and insist that it must be improved. The task is not beyond us. It can be done. It must be done. It will be done”.

A public discussion was organized by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Goethe-Institut jointly. The event looked at the role of NGOs, civil society, the importance of education and knowledge, as well as the German point-of-view on the Middle East. Key speakers in the seminar were Ambassador Dr. Gunter Mulack, Commissioner for the Dialogue of Cultures and the Dialogue with the Muslim World in the German Foreign Office, and Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The seminar included the thoughts of the youth through representatives of several youth organizations, such as the YES Egypt Network, Sustainable Development Association (SDA), Nahdet El Mahrousa, Gudran and Taking IT Global.

The Symposium was jointly organized with the National Centre for scientific research (CNRS), French Embassy in Egypt, the Institute of Research and Development and Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse). This event was meant to help bring together different scientific groups coming from all walks of life and to encourage future collaborative joint studies.
The themes of the symposium were:

• Present genetic diversity in the Mediterranean Basin.
• Human selection and evolution in the Mediterranean Basin, biological and cultural factors.
• Ancient populations of the Mediterranean Basin, from the lower Paleolithic age to the creation of the first states (Egypt), biological and cultural data.

The "Alexandria Statement" issued on 14 March 2004, states that "genuine democracy requires guaranteed freedom of expression in all its forms, chief among which is freedom of the press, audio-visual and electronic media and canceling any form of censorship on intellectual and cultural activities to support freedom of thought, augment creativity and free it from any religious, traditional, private, or political authority under the pretext of public interest. The advance of nations depends on guaranteeing freedom to all intellectual and creative thinkers."

The statement also confirms the need to "exempt the Arab cultural production from any kind of censorship or customs regulations in all Arab countries," and finally it recommends establishing "an Arab Reform Forum at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to act as an open forum for initiatives, intellectual dialogue and Arab projects." . The Beacon for Freedom of Expression Project, and the conferences stemming from it in 2003 and 2004 are part of the general expression of the needs of the world to raise awareness about these issues, and summon people to make the changes needed in their countries, institutions and organizations.

The Young Masters program consists of Internet-based, interactive distance-learning courses in different projects, where the most prominent is the Global Environmental Youth Convention (GEYC). During the convention, an extension and deepening of the Young Masters Distance Education Program was offered.

The GEYC 2004 was the third Convention to bring together the young graduates from the Young Masters Program from many countries to discuss environmental issues.

The Global Environmental Youth Convention (GEYC) in Alexandria 2004 was supported by the Egyptian Ministry of Environment as well as the Ministry of Youth. H.E. Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak has generously accepted the patronship of the convention. The main parties involved in the convention were the Library of Alexandria (BA) and the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT).

Six hundred international participants aged 14-18 from 22 countries took part in the conference.

An international conference organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in partnership with the World Life Sciences Forum BioVision in Lyon, France.

The conference is to be held every even year here in Alexandria, and therefore alternates with its sister conference BioVision in Lyon.

Individual experts from all over the globe who not only represent virtually all aspects of biotechnology, its applications, and its regulation, but the many nations of the world as well, gathered to discuss the different topics of the BioVisionAlexandria 2004 conference: “The New Life Sciences: Ethics, Patents, and the Poor”.

BioVisionAlexandria 2004 was an all-embracing examination of the relationships between the New Life Sciences and development. It addressed the key issues in:

• Healthcare and the Poor
• Agriculture and Safe Food Sufficiency
• Exploiting Biodiversity and Protecting the Environment
• Trade, Patents and Developing Countries

The list of invited speakers included renowned scientists and political figures from around the world, as well as 4 Nobel Laureates.

An accompanying Book Fair for publishers and organizations active in the field of Biotechnology and a Poster session also took place.

The next conference will be held in Lyon from 11 to 15 April 2005, and then again in Alexandria at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in April 2006.

On 20 November, a group of some well-known Egyptian scholars and thinkers met with Professor Constantin von Barloewen at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. They discussed the understanding of progress in different cultures of the world, especially the Arab World.

This Symposium focused on reaching an Arabic definition of progress. Leading intellectuals from different academic backgrounds gathered together in the cities of Alexandria, La Paz, Calcutta, and Windhoek to discuss the understanding of progress from their own cultural perspectives. The results of these meetings will be presented in a final conference in Berlin in December 2004. The aim of this final conference is to inform policy makers and a wider public in Germany about the different concepts of “progress“.

The Symposium in Alexandria aimed at initiating the subsequent meetings in in Bolivia, India, Namibia, and Germany. Its target is to provide a broad overview about the concept of progress in the Arab world and a greater understanding between cultures in our globalized world.

The CSSP, and in cooperation with the Conferences Department participated in organizing the Tempus Conference by providing help for the EU representatives and the Tempus coordinator in Egypt.

The conference was inaugurated by Egypt's First Lady H.E. Suzanne Mubarak and the European Commission President Romano Prodi. It was hosted by the Minister of Higher Education Moufid Shehab and Dr. Ismail Serageldin, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Director.

The High level Advisory Group on Dialogue Between Peoples and Cultures presented some 20 proposals for action to The EU President Romano Prodi, and to those attending the conference. The Conference report was presented to President Prodi and aimed at identifying the initial activities and initiatives of the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation that the European Commission proposed to establish.

As a first step to create on-line international connections for education and dialogue for the purpose of sustainable development, the 360 HUB lighthouse, inspired by the circular shape of the new Library of Alexandria, organized an interactive multicast conference meeting on the web in 4 different meeting rooms around the world on September 10 th 2003.

The lecture was given by Iroquois Chief, Oren Lyons on “Technology for Seven Generations”, which was broadcasted from Sweden via Internet at the Technological School of Lund to the four continents.

The conference was organized in cooperation with the US National Science Resource Center; the conference discussed the following topics:

• Importance of science and mathematics education
• Global challenges in science and mathematics education
• Improving girls' education in science and mathematics
• Use of information and communication technology
• Curriculum development and teacher training
• Use of culture-based stories and hands-on projects in teaching science and mathematics
• Experiences of different countries
• Role of industrialized nations in improving science and mathematics education in less developed countries
• What is fair and effective evaluation?
• Discussion about the possibility of establishing a regional capacity building program on science and mathematics.

As the first international scientific conference organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina after its formal inauguration, the conference purpose was to address the main issues of ethics in these times of rapid change, the social contract between Science and Society, the responsibility and the role of scientists in the practice of scientific research and in the deployment of new technologies and the role of public education.

In addition to plenary sessions, the conference included four parallel session:

• Bioethics, Human Health and Reproduction
• Food, Agriculture and Genetically Modified Food
• Energy and Climate
• Informatics, Communication and Internet

The list of invited speakers included many of the most distinguished scientists in different fields.

Egypt invited leaders from the developing and the industrialized world: leaders in science, government, NGOs, the media, farmers' groups, the private sector and the civil society to meet in Alexandria on March 16-20 2001, in the first conference to take place at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina before its official opening.

The event covered the multi-faceted dimensions of the biotechnology debate: the scientific, ethical, and safety issues as well as the regulatory, Intellectual Property Rights and trade and economic issues. Too frequently in the past, these issues have been discussed in separate and uncoordinated forums, where the government representation comes from different ministries and looks at only one part of the issue. There was also representation from the ministries of agriculture, environment, health, education, scientific research, foreign affairs and international economy and trade who ultimately represent their countries at so many different venues: the WTO, FAO, WHO, UN, and so many more.

The conference focused on three main themes:
Theme 1: Food and Agriculture
Theme 2: Human Health
Theme 3: Ethics & Environmental Safety