International Year of Light News
IALD as Patron Sponsor
The IYL2015 consortium is delighted to welcome into its partnership the International Association of Lighting Designers [IALD] as a Patron sponsor, and to include as a major focus of the year’s activities “Light in the Built Environment”.
The theme of “Light in the Built Environment” addresses both indoor and outdoor environments. The goals of good lighting are to put light where it is needed, when it is needed, while simultaneously minimizing energy use and light pollution. Practitioners of many disciplines, from engineering to architecture, deal with light in the built environment. Lighting designers specialize in applying insights from both science and art to optimize lighting installations, improving human comfort and productivity while also highlighting architectural impact. IALD is the only global organization of independent lighting designers, all of whom are recognized as leaders in the field.
The IALD will celebrate IYL 2015 throughout the year within its existing worldwide program of activities, such as its annual portfolio of Enlighten conferences, and by integrating with the other activities planned by UNESCO and the IYL community.
Read the complete press release here.
Finland: It takes darkness to make light visible
Finland is a small country with a population of about 5 million people. The people working in photonics, both researchers in universities and in photonics companies form a small close knit community. In our Finnish Photonics Society, Photonics Finland, we have only a few hundred members. This enables close collaboration across the country.
In 2015, the Nordic Optics and Photonics Days in Joensuu will be the main photonics event in Finland. The event will host researchers from both universities and companies from Finland and the other Nordic countries, not forgetting photonics students! In addition to the scientific programme, we will also include activities that make light to visible to a more general audience.
But we will not stop at universities. Year after year, Finland has done well in “PISA” – the evaluation of the school systems of various countries. We are proud of our success and we want to continuously develop our schools. The International Year of Light gives a beautiful opportunity for this kind of development, because we now have a good reason to do things across traditional subject boundaries, using light to connect physics, chemistry, and biology.
The Finnish Association for Teachers of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Informatics [MAOL] has a plan to organise a contest for all school children to show their ideas about the importance of light. Furthermore, the theme in 2015 of SciFest, an annual science festival in Joensuu (www.scifest.fi) will be “the Power of Light”. This festival brings together thousands of school kids to play in different workshops where science and mathematics are highlighted.
The long periods of darkness we have here in Finland also give us excellent possibilities to make light art. Especially in the past few years, we have seized this unique opportunity using the dark to see light. Nowadays, we have several light art events around Finland, like Lux Helsinki, Aurora Carealis and Tampere Illuminations. These events will also have a more visible role in 2015.
Since we are in Finland, we cannot avoid the Nordic Lights. Even though they are most common in northern Finland, occasionally one can see them also in southern Finland. We wish that the Sun will also celebrate IYL2015 with us, and give us nice showers of particles to glow here.
