Talents-for-Future Minisymposium & Iceskating

Talents-for-Future Minisymposium & Iceskating

29 Dec 2023

Time flew past for our Talents-for-Future “Summer” students from Ghana, who spent the past 2.5 months at the Vienna BioCenter. In a closing Mini-Symposium all three students, Martin, Victor and Sarah, presented their research to us, and it has been amazing to hear how much they’ve accomplished and learnt during their time at the VBC. I can safely say that launching the Talents-for-Future program with our Ghanaian students has been a huge success. This program builds on Victoria’s successful initiative 3 years ago, where she invited a student (Eduardo) from El Salvador for a research stay into our lab over the summer. On a personal note, it has been fantastic to see our Ghanaian students grow as scientists and persons, and we could not have wished for a more motivated group of students: they were willing to dive into new research experiences and embrace our very different culture from day one! Their stay with us was topped off with a week of beautiful snow in Vienna (the first snow for our Ghanaian friends!), Christmas market visits and even some ice-skating that sparked real ambitions in some to become the first ever Ghanaian Olympic ice-skater. It has been amazing to have had you join us here in Vienna – thank you for being so openminded, kind and full of smiles, optimism and determination to reach your dreams of becoming scientists!