international
polar
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Approximately 260 polar teachers and early career scientists from all over the world have gathered at Oslo prior to the PolarTEACHERS conference and APECS workshop to break the ice. Spirits were high as the guests were taken to the home of polar explorer Roald Amundsen to attend a dinner celebrating the 100th anniversary of Amundsen’s departure for the South Pole.

The "Zero Emission" Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica has been selected to be featured in the "Multiple Plan - Design Crossroads in Belgium" exhibition in Essen's Red Dot Design Museum from October 28th until November 21st, 2010.

The IPY Oslo Science Conference, scheduled for 8-12 June, is one of the biggest polar science meeting. Four IPF staff members will be attending. Needless to say, we are all exited.

Because of the ash cloud spitted out by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, our colleague Nathalie Van Isacker has to spend a few more days in Shanghai than what was originally planned. That gave her a bit more time to visit the city, take more pictures of the Ice Cube Project and attend the first “test day” of the exhibition.

To prepare for the grand opening of the Shanghai World Expo 2010, Nathalie Van Isacker, our Scientific Officer at the International Polar Foundation, will be in Shanghai from April 15th to April 19th. She will help Maria Millan from Atelier Brückner supervise the on-site construction of the giant “Ice Cube” for the EU Belgian Pavilion.

CryoSat-2, successor to CryoSat, was launched successfully from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on April 8th, 2010. The freshly launched satellite will provide accurate data on the variations of ice thickness in the Polar Regions, whether on land or on the sea surface. CryoSat-2, the third of the Earth Explorer satellites to have been launched in the past year, is part of a larger European effort to better understand the impact of climate change on these remote, yet sensitive regions.

During an official ceremony that took place on April 1st, 2010, Mrs. Sabine Laruelle, Belgian Federal Minister for Science Policy, and Alain Hubert, President of the International Polar Foundation, signed a partnership protocol between the IPF and the Belgian State. The protocol, besides marking the donation of the Princess Elisabeth research station to the Belgian State, defines the International Polar Foundation as the Antarctic Operator within the Belgian Polar Secretariat and the rightful owner of the intellectual property rights as the author of Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

Just a quick Monday news to tell you that we are thrilled to see that the Ice Cube structure is currently being built on the site of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

On March 22nd, Steven Goderis, a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, became the second recipient of the Antarctica InBev-Baillet Latour Fellowship Award. The official awarding ceremony took place at headquarters of the International Polar Foundation in Brussels and was attended by representatives of both the InBev-Baillet Latour Funds and the IPF.

During a ceremony at the Princess Elisabeth Station, Sven Kerremans (Laborelec) and Jean Chalon (Schneider Electric) symbolically handed over the keys of the station's technical core to Alain Hubert, President of the International Polar Foundation. The event celebrated the completion of the final systems tests. The Princess Elisabeth Station is now officially the first research station ever to solely operate on renewable energies!