Invited by the College de France to organize the international conference “To Abolish Hunger” to be held on 19-20 May 2011, Serageldin is gathering distinguished experts, scientific and political leaders and decision-makers for an exchange of solutions on how hunger may be abolished, and to discuss a global plan to this end. Among the speakers invited are Peter Doherty and Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureates in medicine and literature respectively; Yolanda Kakabadse, Chair of WWF International; and David Beckmann, Chairman of Bread for the World. In his lectures at College de France earlier this year, Serageldin put forward his ideas on the eradication of hunger and invited everybody to become the “new abolitionists”, of hunger. The conference tackles different perspectives on this topic, and aims to establish recommendations for the approaching G8/G20 summits chaired by France.
Serageldin is elected by the fifty-two professors of Collège de France and officially appointed by President Sarkozy as Professor to the International Chair Savoirs contre pauvreté (Knowledge Against Poverty), for the academic year 2010-2011. He gave his inaugural lecture to a very large audience in November 2010, and returned to give a course of lectures over the month of January 2011.