The fifth International Conference for Mountains in the Changing World (MoChWo) (8th and 9th of October 2020) and the first international virtual scientific event in Nepal concluded successfully with a total of 54 presentations from 16 countries, with 27 invited speakers and 27 regular presenters.

The conference was registered and attended by 420 participants

With keynote speeches from Prof Dr Yasushi Yamaguchi, Director in General at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies Education at Nagoya University, and Dr Eklabya Sharma, Deputy Director-General, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal.

The conference virtually hosted a total of more than 240 guests from all over the world, made even more illustrious by special guests from the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), the Asia Pacific Network (APN), the Central Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (CDHM), National Nuclear Agency Indonesia, IASS Germany, Ben-Gurion University Israel, GEOGLAM JAXA Japan, University of Aveiro, Portugal, SAARC Agriculture Center, Dhaka, Nord University, Norway, Tohoku University, Japan, Huntington Consulting, Eagle River, AK, USA, GNS Science, New Zealand, KU, Nepal, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, Worcester State University, USA.

The 5th MoChWo happened over Zoom, with international participants braving time zone differences in order to share their expertise. However, we didn’t let the change in medium affect the quality of the conference- we had fixed opening-closing sessions overseen by this years’ convenor Dr Hemu Kharel Kafle. we also had 2 parallel sessions running smoothly, as well as 7 symposiums, 13 specialized sessions and a poster session all within Zoom, with short breaks to relax frayed nerves.

We are proud of the discussions that we saw, from exploring the possibilities of Insects as an alternative source of protein, the prediction of natural disasters to discussing the significance of women representation in STEM and their roles in the socio-economic development of a society. 

We are even prouder that the circumstances that forced us into new mediums like these were but points of discussion in our sessions.

Both days of the conference were streamed live on Facebook Watch, and you can find them still on MoChWo’s Facebook page.