Eduardo de Mulder

The YES Network has been an ESM Partner since its onset in 2011. Like ESM, the YES Network has been an offspring of the UN-proclaimed International Year of Planet Earth and their 5th International Conference in Berlin marked its 10 years existence. The Yes Network has over 5000 members since. The title of this Berlin Conference, hosted by and held in the premises of the Freie Universität, was ROCKING EARTH’S FUTURE.

In March 2019, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), organised a major Forum on Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) in Beijing. That was followed by an official launch of this word-class project in Kunshan. More than 80 (30 International, > 50 Chinese) Scientists from many disciplines gave presentations demonstrating that data must be fully accessible (FAIR) for searching machines, through machine learning and AI techniques further translate, integrate and compile such information automatically in graphs, maps etc.

Two important geoscientific conferences were held back-to-back from 11 – 15 August 2014, in the Julius Nyerere Conference Centre in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The conferences were attended by the Presidents of the YES Network, Wang Meng and the Geological Society of Africa (GSAf), Aberra Mogessie, both ESM Board members, together with the ESM Executive Director. Both conferences had a good attendance by African geoscientists and by a significant number of colleagues oversees.

On invitation by the JpGU and sponsored by the new e-journal Progress on Earth and Planetary Sciences the ESM Executive Director attended the annual JpGU Conference in Yokohama, Japan. This annual geoscience meeting belongs to the largest in the world and attracted about 7,000 geoscientists, predominantly from Japan. Prof. Yukio Himiyama, the leader of the Human Geoscience section in Japan and Vice-President of the International Geographical Union invited ESM to address the audience in a Union Session on Future Earth.