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hello everyone I'm Sadat from jet

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propulsion laboratory and I'm here to

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talk about the work that I started

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before joining JPL in India and for

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those of you in the audience who are

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currently involved or plan to do work in

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different parts of the world where

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astrobiology has huge potential and

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significance hopefully with some of my

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experience you'll be able to take things

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forward

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so first of all a little bit about

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myself so I'm originally from India and

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before joining JPL

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um I have an engineering background and

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my current work is actually on Enceladus

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on Sample collection Technologies but

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unfortunately today I'm not going to be

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talking about that this is primarily

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going to be focused on that but just

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giving a heads up people can find me

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after the talk and maybe we can chat

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um but here here is why we focused on

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India well first and foremost as a

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country India has one of the largest

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student populations as some of you might

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be aware every year we've got several

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thousands of students graduating in

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science and engineering and on a daily

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basis we get inquiries about how do you

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study and how do you work in

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astrobiology so there's a huge supply

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and demand problem and there's little to

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no formal education or you know career

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prospects in the country so that was the

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first and foremost no-brainer reason

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secondly I would like to really promote

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the fact that we have an amazing

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diversity of high value science analogs

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and these are places where some of you

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might actually find some of your work to

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be super relevant so with this in mind

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these sites are not even on the atlas of

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astrobiology sites that the community

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normally works in

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and lastly our National Space Agency

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Indian space research organization is

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finally reaching a point to to involve

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astrobiology as an important science

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priority for its future missions it had

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the Mars Orbiter mission in 2014

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currently there are it's under Works to

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work on a Surface mission that would

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work on the progress and the success of

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the lunar mission that will be launching

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in a month from now and finally there is

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the gaganyan program which is the human

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space program which will have astronauts

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working in low earth orbit

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so that's with that as the basic

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motivation of why we decided to do this

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seven years ago let me talk quickly

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about the background in terms of what

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astrobiology was happening before we

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kind of stepped in so the earliest what

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we could find is between 97 to 2005

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Israel was involved in scientific

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balloon experiments where they were

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basically working on collecting and

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understanding microbes in the

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stratosphere

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um cut to 2015 where as a grad student I

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got an opportunity to go on an

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astrobiology expedition to New Zealand

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and along with a few other Indian and

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Indian origin researchers we decided to

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bring the program to India

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and that's what we did as part of the um

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NASA space shut down India Expedition

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that was the first time that a dedicated

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astrobiology expedition was taking place

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Gathering and bringing together

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researchers in the country and that's

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where ball just really started rolling

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the momentum started building up and let

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me tell you something that working and

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socializing with people in uncomfortable

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dry desert environments is way better

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than inside an air conditioned customer

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with experience

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so some of the things I led from that

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was the establishment of a standard of

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Excellence in astrobiology at Amity

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University Mumbai which was the first

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dedicated Center that I was a part of

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leading and also as part of Blue Marble

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space the organization that I had been

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affiliated with the astrobiology India

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group has been active since then

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working to promote coordination

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activities between domestic researchers

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in the country so we've been having

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National level meetings and discussions

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and what we want to do from here is move

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forward towards setting up a national

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astrobiology program closely in support

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with the Indian government

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I don't have enough time but I'll try to

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do justice to this slide um our efforts

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at the center focused on three main

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verticals the microgravity research we

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built plant-based plant growth

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observation experiments for ISRO we

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worked on characterizing some of the

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sites in ladakh which is an early Mars

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analog and Hardware testing for Rovers

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and in collaboration with UC Berkeley

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the Berkeley City Research Center we had

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four research fellows who were working

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to use

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um radio telescope data from gmrt which

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is a array facility there to set up a

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city pipeline

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and our research work has culminated

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into the university finally agreeing to

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have a master's program that is

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dedicated for astrology and science

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students so hopefully this year onwards

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we'll have students in India who'll have

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that opportunity to study there

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um Blue Marble space has been a great

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source of information and help and

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network so those of you are not

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affiliated I would say strongly

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recommended do consider it

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quickly talking about some of the unique

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aspects of Astral biology in India I've

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just highlighted some of the main sites

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here in ladakh up north which is a high

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altitude code dry desert environment

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Kutch which is one of the largest salt

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flats in the world the only accessible

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Basalt impact Creator in lonar uh the

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basalt traps and Limestone caves and

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there are several others

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and because we don't have a National

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astrobiology Institute yet there have

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been institutions that have been

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mushrooming over the last few decades

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and I've been uh very successful and

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fortunate to be part of several senior

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earth scientists to work towards setting

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this up and it's only because of these

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people who you're seeing on the screen

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over here that we're able to do this and

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we've been working through the pandemic

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to make this happen they've been a

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working group uh several working groups

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that have been put in place uh we've

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been closely following uh work done in

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Europe and at uh in the United States

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through the NASA Astra Biology Institute

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to help form these working groups and

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these are some names in some areas where

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you know people have been working

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and too much information bad slide I

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know but I just wanted to tell you that

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there are these sites and we have been

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trying to map out the science objectives

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the different Technologies what worlds

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are they analog to and what kind of

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missions would they be able to support

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into the future

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um some other ways in which we have been

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contributing we published our first

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advocacy paper and new space Journal uh

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talking about the importance of

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astrobiology for India and internally we

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have been contributing to the science

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roadmap for uh ISRO as well

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now three main wins for us one is the

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fact that we've got several students who

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have gone through our uh system and

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these are the people who in the future

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will be taking light forward

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this year ISRO published its space

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policy document and we were very happy

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to see that they have acknowledged the

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importance of estrobiology because

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they've mentioned that they will be

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looking into extraterrestrial

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habitability so for us as a country this

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is a huge win that finally ISRO has

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acknowledged us

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and the fact that there is now

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comprehensive I would say not enough but

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still uh comprehensive diversification

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of funding for scientists in the country

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to do this but definitely more work

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needs to be done and more funding needs

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to be put together

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so my last slide um to summarize some of

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these things if you are in your region

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or country interested in setting things

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up the first and foremost step is to

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bring early and mid-career people

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together and encourage conversations to

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take place at a domestic level at the

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same time leveraging International work

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and like I said field workshops are

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amazing for team building

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finding an important University or a

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host institution is critical because if

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you're doing events logistically

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speaking it's important to find an

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organization that will support you and

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beware of non-scientific and

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exploitative groups in the in the in the

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region

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finally convene workshops identify

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research interests try to tailor them

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together into overarching themes and

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help the group formalize themselves in

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the form of a virtual Network a

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non-profit or a society and finally

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encourage the group members to work

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closely with their government for their

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astrology goals so that's my time and

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you hope you can find me and those of

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you are interested can talk more on this

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[Music]