SFI Summit Conference

SFI Science Summit 2010

It is now 10 years since the Irish Government’s decision to establish SFI and commence providing significant investment in science and engineering research, supporting people and ideas.  In line with this, SFI would like to celebrate some of the best ideas across the range of research that SFI has supported over the past decade. With this focus the theme of SFI Summit 2010 is Mining Minds – A New Decade of Discovery.

Again we have a full agenda at this year’s Science Summit - Keynote addresses, panel discussion, workshops, elevator pitches and Your Space Sessions. We are pleased to have keynote addresses from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation & Science and Mr Rory McInerney, Vice President, Intel.  The Summit will continue to provide an important networking role in the SFI community and to provide a unique opportunity for discussion and debate across the wide spectrum of disciplines supported by SFI.

We are again seeking nominations from the SFI community for the SFI Researcher of the Year Award 2010.  The recipient will be announced at the Science Summit Dinner.  Last year the award was given to Prof. Luke O'Neil, TCD.

We look forward to meeting you in Athlone and remind you that you should register for this summit no later than 17.00 on Friday 17th September.

Prof Frank Gannon
Director General - SFI

"An under-current of thought was going on in my mind, which gave at last a result, whereof it is not too much to say that I felt at once the importance. An electric circuit seemed to close; and a spark flashed forth........Nor could I resist the impulse-unphilosophical as it may have been-to cut with a knife on a stone of Brougham Bridge, as we passed it, the fundamental formula with the symbols, i, j, k"

The words of famed Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton as he was walking along the Royal Canal in Dublin with his wife in 1843, which describe the moment when one of the most profound concepts in mathematics was borne. Today quaternions, complex numbers with four components, are used to perform calculations that design 3-D graphics in computer games, keep spacecraft aloft, and guide robots on assembly lines. This fundamental breakthrough has inspired generations of research, seeded other new ideas, and ultimately contributed to products and processes of immense value to society.