International Year of Light celebrated in Ghana

Ghana recently celebrated the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015 (IYL 2015), a worldwide initiative of the United Nations to raise awareness of how optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges.

Those challenges include issues related to energy, education, agriculture, communications and health.

The event's founders include the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, the European Physical Society, the Abdus Salam International Centre of Theoretical Physics, the IEEE Photonics Society, the Institute of Physics, Light: Science and Applications, the lightsources.org International Network, 1001 Inventions, the Optical Society and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).

"Light has indeed fueled virtually every innovation, and light provides the large bandwidths that support modern communications technologies," Ghanaian President John Mahama said of the event. 

IYL 2015's theme was “Harnessing Light and Light-Based Technologies for Africa’s Development." Representatives from Mexico, Sweden, Senegal, Algeria, Cameroon and Egypt attended the conference.

For more information on IYL 2015, visit www.light2015.org.