Today, the Academic Vice President of the National University of La Plata, Fernando Tauber, participated in the opening of the eighth session of the Conference of Science and Technology Students (CONECTAR), which brings together university students with scientific and technological professions. He was accompanied by Vice Dean of Astronomical Sciences Santiago Perdomo, university officials and student representatives.
CONECTAR is a free, interdisciplinary annual conference that aims to foster curiosity, exchange of ideas and debate among young scholars from different disciplines, as well as to foster connections between them and speakers of recognized expertise and international standing.
The meeting, which runs until October 8 at the UNLP Planetarium, features a wide range of talks on topics of great importance today, approached from innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives.
On this occasion, the conference is organized around a central axis: sustainable human development where the problem will be addressed through different approaches, including scientific and technological advances that potentially allow us to mitigate the impacts on the biosphere of humans passing through the planet Earth.
For the Vice President, “CONNECT is always a stimulating proposition, where we have a fundamental space to think about what we will do with our future. Knowledge today is the only gateway that makes national sovereignty possible, so that our exhausted country can take off.”
He added: “We are building knowledge. At UNLP we have 150 institutes and 8,000 researchers, so we are obliged to take responsibility for solving problems.
“We have to do things, not wait for them to come looking for us from the state. We have to work for the common good, we have a responsibility to work for the collective well-being and the university can do that.”
He concluded: “The university must have a scientific and technological agenda that coincides with the social agenda.”
CONECTAR also seeks to highlight the value of science to human society, stimulate attendees’ curiosity and foster relationships and connections among future scientists.
The purpose is for university students to expand their horizon of knowledge and discover new areas of interest. Conversations are designed to foster curiosity and stimulate exploration of exciting topics, even outside the student’s major.
In this way, it highlights the importance of interdisciplinarity in addressing current problems, at a time when the tendency towards hyper-specificity of the topics to be investigated makes cooperation and teamwork between experts from different backgrounds more necessary than ever before.
