Date:     30 March 2015 to 1 April 2015
Venue:   University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

The 9th Annual Young Graduates and Scholars (AYGS) Conference will be held at the University of Cape Town, South Africa from 2 March to 4 March 2015. The 2015 conference will be held under the theme: Agenda 2063 an opportune moment for Africa.

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The Africa Young Graduates and Scholars Programme (AYGS) is a research capacity building programme. The programme was conceived in 2005, with the aim of building a body of knowledge and to project the African voice in various discourses about the continent and Diaspora. It is further intended to bridge the existing gap of expertise in knowledge production on African affairs by developing a crop of knowledge producers among the youth of the continent. The objective of the conference each year is to provide a platform for young and emerging scholars on the African continent through new insights in the debates pertaining to the challenges facing African societies and the way forward for the upliftment of African value systems and the ultimate integration of the African continent.

The conference aims to bring together African graduates and young scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds to reflect on Africa’s future and developmental breakthroughs, as well as its challenges and opportunities going forward.

The conference seeks, inter alia, to promote knowledge production amongst young scholars; provide a platform for emerging African scholars to engage and exchange insights in the debates pertaining to the challenges faced by African societies as well as to help bridge the gap of expertise in knowledge production about African affairs by developing a society of knowledge producers among African youth.

This conference will thus focus on the multiple dimensions of Global Change and on seeking innovative ways through which Africa can confront its challenges by taking advantage of the milestones that the continent has achieved to date.

The conference will be organised in the following format:

a) Paper presentations

b) Poster presentations

Academic posters (for both the social and natural sciences) are fast becoming an important part of conference experiences and a powerful form of presenting research in an interesting and accessible way.  At this year’s AYGS we would like to invite interested scholars to submit a poster relating to their research subject.

Since capacity building is a central objective of the AYGS conference, all poster presenters will receive productive feedback on their posters, with possible suggestions of how the posters can be improved in future. What’s more there will be prizes for the top three posters!

The Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA) will be printing all of the posters and participants will be allowed to take them home with them upon conclusion of the conference. There is, however, limited space for poster presentations so we urge you to send in your poster as soon as possible. The official deadline is the 13th of March or until space expires.

How to submit:
–  Make use of the attachment ‘Presentation1’ which has already been formatted to the correct size. You can change the orientation of the page but the size dimensions are already in place
–  Have a look at the attached examples for inspiration and ideas and try come up with own.
–  Submit your poster to Elize Van As (evanas@hsrc.ac.za) no later than the 13th of March 2015.
–  Please note, space is limited and preference will be given on a first come, first serve basis.
–  Those whose posters will be put on display will be allocated a time slot whereby they need to stand with their posters for judging and questions. These times and details will be communicated directly to participants.

Poster presenters are attending AYGS at their own costs, including accommodation and transport

Papers are invited to focus on any of the following sub themes:

• Science and Technology
• Development for the people
• Earth System Science
• Future Earth
• Gender and Global Change
• Peace and Security including Democracy and Governance