Conference co-director final word

Congratulations to everyone on a conference well done. This conference would not have been successful without the enthusiastic interaction of participants, the thoughtful input of speakers, the insightful choices of producers, and the tireless work of tens of organizers.

I have received lots of positive feedback over the past few days. The most consistent comment was how great it was to be able to meet so many people from so many different parts of the world during the WCSJ2011. I believe our greatest accomplishment in this conference has been having 50 percent of participants from the developing world. And what I have seen is that not only was this a great opportunity for developing world journalists to grow and learn. I also saw that developed world journalists learned much from their developing world colleagues. The WCSJ2011 in Doha was a true multi-cultural experience and fertile ground for dialogue and networking.

We are all very sorry for those of you who got ill during the conference. Many people worked tirelessly to make sure you were visited by a doctor and got the medications you needed. The authorities have been informed of the situation and we will follow-up their investigations. We hope you all got home safely and that you are now feeling better.

The World Conference of Science Journalists is a continuing learning curve. What we achieved in Doha could not have been done without the extensive support of the previous WCSJ organizers. Jean-Marc Fleury who organized the WCSJ in Montreal; Niall Byrne and Sarah Brooker who organized the WCSJ in Melbourne; and Julie Clayton, Sallie Robins and Sarah Willan who organized the WCSJ2009 in London all provided consultation and heavy duty support to make the WCSJ2011 in Doha a success. The WCSJ2011 organizing team hopes that it will be as helpful to the Finnish Association of Science Editors and Journalists as they organize the next WCSJ2013 in Helsinki.

We are all very excited to hand over the baton to FASEJ and that we’ll be seeing you all again in June 2013 in Helsinki. The Finns will put together and even greater conference for us all to enjoy.

See you in 2013!

Nadia El-Awady
Past President, World Federation of Science Journalists
Co-Director, 7th World Conference of Science Journalists