It’s a Wrap. CitSciAsia Webinar, Take 1.

Put together in conjunction with SciStarter for Citizen Science Month, our first webinar has been edited and available to watch on the CitSciAsia youtube channel.

Being based in the largest and most populace continent in the world, distances and (currently closed) borders means it is challenging to meet and hear from Citizen Scientists in person, but huge scope for the internet to connect us via virtual platforms. On top of our mobilize and facebook forums webinars are an ideal mechanism to do this, and on top of our CitSciAsia…meets interviews, a CitSciAsia Webinar has been a goal of our youtbe channel. As part of Citizen Science Month, with the assistance and participation of SciStarter on the 24th April 2020 we broadcast our first webinar. Expertly chaired by CitSciAsia’s Adrienne Dodd, it also included a Q&A to allow viewers to ask questions of our online experts. Featuring two keynote speakers the session was recorded, and thanks to the help of Louis Wong (www.louiswong.net) these have now been edited into easy to view segments and posted on our youtube channel.

In part 1, Caroline Nickerson from Scistarter started the webinar off with an introduction to Citizen Science Month and the great work that Scistarter does bringing together citizen scientists across the world. With cool hints on connecting your iNaturalist and Scistarter profiles. CitizenScience.Asia Co-Founders Scott Edmunds and Mendel Wong then give an introduction of our community and organization, and the importance and contributions to citizen science from the largest and most populace continent in the world.

After the introductions it was time for the keynote talks from practioners across our continent. For this first ever webinar we decided to follow a biodiversity theme, showcasing projects in the wonderfully biodiverse corners of our continent in Bangladesh and Taiwan. Our first keynote was from Safiqul Islam of Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden, Germany. Safiqul presented on the WildMentor Citizen Science Biodiversity app in Bangladesh, the first smartphone app to help catalogue Bangladesh’s wildlife (download it from google play here).

The second keynote was from Dr Cheng-Tao Lin on City Nature Challenge in Taiwan. Cheng-Tao organizes City Nature Challenge in Chiayi, and talked about his experience there and the great participation from a number of Taiwanese cities this year.

We’ve been keen to use this forum to be able to make the voices of citizen scientists in Asia heard, and are currently working on putting together a second CitSciAsia webinar. If you are a Citizen Science practitioner in Asia who have a story you’d like to tell, or if you have suggestions of speakers you’d really like to hear from about please get in touch. And watch this space for take 2.