We met for the first edition of the “Meeting of Minds” Forum, held in Jakarta 11-12 December 2019. It was a collaboration between myself and Dr. Noha Adly of Alexandria University in Egypt and our friends and colleagues of “Heritage Amana” with its incomparable CEO, Mrs. Salina Nordin, in Indonesia.
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The meeting of Minds Forum, and as the younger participants – and many others – called it: “MeMinds” was an enormous success.
This Forum was designed to be a forum where ideas can be exchanged, and where we can join the wisdom of the enlightened, with the experience of the old and the imagination and energy of the young. A meeting of minds that would enable us to learn from each other, and thereby make the best successes of the few the standard practices of the many. We need Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), with space for an enriching diversity of opinion…. And it was all of that.
Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt led off in the session on biology, joined by distinguished specialists: Nina Fedoroff and Per Pinstrup-Andersen. We had distinguished participants from India (Dr. Raj Paroda) , Iran/USA (Dr. Nadereh Chamlou) , From Egypt: Drs Adel Elbeltagy, Ahmed Darwish, and Amr Ezzat Salama, Dr Noha Adly and Ms Karima El-Hakim as well as counselor Taher Huzzayen. And, of course, many distinguished Indonesians including several current and former ministers.