FAMU Delegation Prepares for Energy, Water, Food, Climate Nexus Summit in South Africa

Florida A&M University (FAMU) President Larry Robinson, Ph.D., will lead a delegation of administrators, students, faculty and staff heading to Durban, South Africa, for the 2024 EnergyWaterFoodClimate Nexus International Summit.

The focus of the four-day summit is to expand the research frontier for new discoveries that integrate systems-based research and education to find solutions to the vexing environmental challenges.

“The 2024 EnergyWaterFoodClimate Nexus Summit represents part of FAMU’s role in addressing some of the most urgent environmental questions of our time. It’s also an opportunity for both students and faculty to adopt a global focus even as they hone their research to confront complex issues on the home front in Florida and around the US,” said Robinson, the principal investigator on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Center for Coastal and Marine  Ecosystems II formed in 2016 to address issues confronting marine and coastal communities and to educate the next generation of problem solvers in these areas.

Following registration on July 1, the Summit swings into high gear  on July 2 with a keynote address by Sierra Leone Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Jiwoh E. Abdulai. The 2022 Summit was held on FAMU’s Tallahasee campus. This year’s summit is a collaboration with Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT), Durban, South Africa, focusing on addressing the challenges facing Africa.

FAMU School of the Environment Dean Victor Ibeanusi, Ph.D., is the founder and convener of the EnergyWaterFoodClimate Nexus Summit.

“The FAMU School of the Environment is leading this summit to promote cross-cutting discussion, scholarship, and collaboration among researchers, students and entrepreneurs to advance science, policy and decision-making,” Ibeanusi said. “Most importantly, the summit creates a platform for global discussions that allow particpants to present innovative ideas for sustainable solution.”

Among those scheduled to address the summit are university administrators, scholars, business executives and government officials from Africa, Europe and North America.  More than 500 participants have registered thus far.

“As South Africa celebrates 30 years of democracy, Mangosuthu University of Technology celebrates 45 years anniversary by focusing on programs that will put the University on a global stage,” said Professor Nokuthula Sibya, MUT acting vice-chancellor and principal. “To advance the discourse, MUT takes pride in collaborating with the United States’ Florida A&M University in hosting the 2024 EnergyWaterFoodClimate Nexus Summit on 1-4 July 2024 at Coastlands Hotel in the Ridge.”

The FAMU team is comprised of 13 students who will serve as notetakers at the summit. They will be assigned to take copious notes for all the sessions. At the end of the day Summit, they will be used to produce a peer-reviewed post summit proceeding. In addition, students will participate in the Why Hack, a session during which the students and their South African and African counterparts will be required to respond to questions based on the summit’s nine thematic tracks – water quality, microbial systems and bioinformatics, harnessing big data, zero GHG emission, achieving soil carbon goals, climate resilient agriculture, food security, AI-driven  circular economy, and let a new science enterprise lead the way.

Dean Victor Ibeanusi and student show the nine thematic tracks of the 2024 EnergyWaterFoodClimate Nexus Summit. (Credit: FAMU School of the Environment)

Andrew J. Skerritt

Associate Director

FAMU Office of Communications

850-544-2675