Fifth Set of Winners for the CBU Knowledge Campaign

Three lucky CBU subscribers comprise the fifth set of winners of the Knowledge Campaign on crop biotechnology launched by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). They are Johar Singh, a scientist at the Punjab Agricultural University, India; Eric Omuru, CEO of the PNG Cocoa Coconut Institute in Papua New Guinea; and Geoffrey Kamadi, a freelance journalist in Kenya. They will each get a bronze duplicate of the Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Congressional Gold Medal and are eligible for the grand draw of a netbook on December 31, 2010. Three medals will be drawn every week until the end of the year.

One of the first set of winners is Dr. Vikas Patade of the Institute of Bio-Energy Research, India (shown in the photo holding the Borlaug medal). Through an e-mail, Dr. Patade expressed his appreciation on the Knowledge Campaign: "It's my proud privilege to be one of the first three lucky winners of the Knowledge Campaign for 'A million healing hands to help a billion hungry' launched by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). My hearty congratulations to the organizers for the grand success of  this important promotional campaign to spread crop biotechnology information. I am also thankful to other subscribers in my various e-groups who responded to the CBU URL link, I sent them."

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) launched a Knowledge Campaign which will run until December 31, 2010. The Knowledge Campaign for "A million healing hands to help a billion hungry" is dedicated to Dr. Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Peace Laureate who was the founding patron ofISAAA. With his full support and initiative, ISAAA established theGlobal 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 until December 31, 2010. To participate, log on to ISAAA Knowledge Campaign at http://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/invitepromo/cbu-promo,asp.