Coming together to plan for a better future
The University of Guelph hosted the second Global Development Symposium (GDS) from May 4 to 7. The symposium began with an opening reception at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (MSAC) on Sunday, May 4.
The three day scientific and humanitarian conference was host to over 200 researchers, scientists, and students from 18 countries and five continents. The symposium’s three main themes were Global Public Health, Community Empowerment, and Food and Water Security.
“[The GDS] brings together people from all over [the world] with different interests in medical, veterinary medical, and environmental issues and tries to inspire people with what’s possible [while also allowing them] to think about what it is that we can do to challenge each other to do more,” explained Dr. Alastair Summerlee, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guelph. “Anyone who’s interested in international development or global development issues is encouraged to come.”
The opening reception also acted as a book launch for SICK! Curious Tales of Pests & Parasites We Share with Animals – a collection of interesting anecdotes and stories by members of the veterinary community. The book is a detailed examination of how animals and humans are connected through the various diseases that interact with both groups of organisms.
Among SICK!’s many contributors are Dr. Summerlee and Dr. Elizabeth Stone, Dean of the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC). Both distinguished academics were present at the opening reception.
“[The book] was a project that came out of us thinking about what veterinarians do,” explained Dr. Stone. “I had the idea to begin with and I brought together a small group of people that worked on zoonotic diseases. We started to make a list of the people we knew might have interesting stories. People always tell veterinarians ‘You’ve got to write about that.’ We made this list and started asking people if they would [tell their stories].”
The concept for the first GDS was proposed when academics and administrators at the University of Guelph were thinking of a way to mark the 150th anniversary of the OVC. Deciding against holding a purely veterinary conference, the organizers of GDS 2012 were inspired by the idea of bringing together a collection of minds from various disciplines and walks of life.
“We wanted to show how veterinarians are very involved in international development work within Canada and beyond,” explained Dr. Stone. “Rather than having [mainly] veterinarians talking to veterinarians, we wanted to bring in the engineers, social scientists, and international developers. A lot of the people that came [to the first GDS] said that it was one of the best conferences [they’d ever been to].”
The success of GDS 2012 inspired organizers to put together a larger symposium, with more speakers, presentations, and ideas.
“The [GDS] is an opportunity for people from lots of different disciplines from many different countries with the thought to help many different problems to come together to talk about how they are solving the problems in their own way,” said Dr. Cate Dewey, Department Chair of Population Medicine at the OVC, and co-author of SICK!. “What I hope happens is that we meet one another and that we listen to how somebody else is solving a problem. If we were to then [work together in the future], I think we would do a better job of helping the planet than if we were to try to do it on our own.”
Students and members of the community interested in learning more about the ideas presented at the GDS were able to do so by visiting the basement of War Memorial Hall. Detailed posters and banners were hung up to showcase the various projects that were discussed.