ISAAA's Campaign for 1 M Subscribers

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has launched a Knowledge Campaign on crop biotechnology for "A million healing hands to help a billion hungry". The campaign is dedicated to Dr. Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Peace Laureate who was the founding patron of ISAAA. With his full support and initiative, ISAAA established the Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology in 2000 in the Philippines with active nodes called Biotechnology Information Centers (BICs) in 24 countries globally. ISAAA and its global family of BICs are celebrating a decade of success in spearheading the sharing of knowledge and capacity building on crop biotechnology to help alleviate poverty in developing countries.

ISAAA has institutionalized the sharing of knowledge on crop biotechnology by creating and distributing a weekly email-based newsletter Crop Biotech Update (CBU) which summarizes the latest world developments in agriculture, food and crop biotechnology relevant to developing countries. CBU is now distributed to over 850,000 subscribers in 200 countries and the campaign hopes to up the figures to 1 Million by December 31, 2010.

ISAAA urges people participation by simply enrolling, without cost or obligation, 1 to 5 email addresses, or preferably more, of their co-professionals, and colleagues including students, for a draw to take place every week after the eve of World Food Day, October 16, 2010. Three winners will be honored with a bronze duplicate of the Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Congressional Gold Medal every week with the last draw on December 31, 2010 with a netbook to recognize the critical role of electronics in communication. To participate, log on to ISAAA Knowledge Campaign at http://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/invitepromo/cbu-promo,asp.