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How many volunteers were present at the Congress? : |
As reprted by the congress organizers, 2,400 people participated. |
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Delegates from which countries presented in the congress? : |
The participants were from 79 countries from allpover the world, including nearly 400 attendees from the Africa/Middle East Region. Participants from US, UK, South Africa, Nigeria, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Germany, etc were present in the congress. |
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Were the delegates of any other organizations present in the congress? : |
Yes |
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If yes, please write the names of the organizations in the box : |
Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, School of Dentisrtry |
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What were the responses to your talking points? Were specific questions or concerns raised? : |
In addition to some scientific discussions with colleagues from other universities, I tried get ideas about international activities by other universities who were present in the exhibition of the congress. The universities were presenting their courses for international students in the form of booklets, pamphlets, etc. I tried to establish communication with some of them. |
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If you met staff members, please list their full names & positions. : |
There was a meeting with Dr Christopher Fox from US, the executive director of IADR, Prof. Veerasamy Yengopal, the head of South African division of IADR, and Dr Ansari, the head of Iranian division of IADR. Iranian delegates participated in the meeting, and discussed about the ways to promote participation of Iranian delegates in IADR meetings. |
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Please inform us if there are any follow up actions we need to talk with the members of the congress : |
The initial talk with a colleague from Nigeria, Dr Morenike Ukpong from Obafemi Awolowo university was done in order to define a research project to investigate disease burden in Nigeria, using Iranian experience. The discussion continued after the congress, and the project is underway. Moreover, we discussed about signing an MOU with the dental school of Nigerian university for joint programs. This is also underway. This needs the suppot by TUMS. |
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Your experiences about the travel processes(Providing ticket, accommodation,...) : |
Since there is not direct flight from Iran to South Africa, we had to go through Dubai, and we had a long waiting time in Dubai airport! However, there was no problem regarding travel and accommodation since we booked hotel in advance. |
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Please give a briefing of your own observations and outcomes of the congress: : |
IADR meetings are among the biggest international scientific congresses in the field of dentistry. About 2500 delegates had participated in Cape Town meeting. However, the organization of the congress was good.
A major part of the congress was poster presentation. From a point of view, poster presentation can provide a very good forum for scientific discussions, even better than oral sessions. This is something that we should work on it in local or international congresses that we want to hold.
If the participants from TUMS or Iran in an international congress work together as a team, they can do many things. For example, they may participate in concurrent sessions, and then share the ideas and information they get; or they may request for specific meeting with congress members (like what we did). They also may focus on various aspects of international activities (Joint research programs, collaboration, etc ) and work on that during congress. |