International Year of Light comes to an end in Mexico
The International Year of Light 2015 (IYL2015) was brought to an official close with a ceremony held over three days from 4 to 6 February 2016 in Mérida, Mexico.
The International Year of Light was a global initiative adopted by the United Nations and organised by UNESCO to raise awareness of how light and optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education, agriculture, communications and health. It has been a large success with thousands of events reaching over one million people in 120 countries.
The IYL Closing Ceremony celebrated light and its many applications in science and society with keynote speakers such as Nobel laureate Shuji Nakamura, as well as leaders from the wider lighting community. The programme of the three-day event also included plenary talks and workshops covering areas of science, technology, development, lighting solutions in society, art and culture, the history of science, education and science policy.
LUCI was also a speaker at the event in the workshop on « Light in the built environment, light and architecture » on 4 February 2016, where General Director Mark Burton-Page presented how cities use urban lighting to shape and transform society by using light as a tool for sustainable social, economic and cultural development.
He specifically concentrated his talk on the LUCI Charter on Urban Lighting, with the objective of raising the awareness of the scientific community, the lighting designers and various stakeholders involved in the lighting field that cities have an important role to play and have a significant amount of know-how on quality and sustainable lighting brought together within LUCI for the past 15 years.
A colloquium on 5 February co-moderated by lighting designer Gustavo Aviles and Mark Burton-Page, addressed the topic of lighting as an element of the relationship between art and science.
An intense discussion took place between the speakers representing local authorities, lighting designers and the scientific community. Speakers were the following:
- Maurizio Dimartina, Coordinador de Acciones Sociales, Autoridad del centro Historico, Mexico City
- Richard Distl, member of the CIE Board as treasurer and former CEO of Systems Gmbh
- Antonio Garza , Lighting designer and President of the Mexico Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES)
- Víctor Palacio, Lighting designer, President of IALD
- Liz Peck , Lighting designer president of the Society of Light & Lighting
- Héctor Solano, Researcher of atmospheric sciences at the CentroMet, Mexico
More information on the closing ceremony and its programme
Read a Cities & Lighting interview with John Dudley, Chairman of the IYL 2015 Steering Committee, on the role of urban lighting in the International Year of Light