Discussionportant novelty in that Jim Simons, the American mathematician,hedge fund manager and philanthropist, whothrough his Foundation supports projects in mathematicsand in research in general, produced four short movieson the Fields Medallists that were really outstanding. Inthe films, Artur Avila appeared while doing research inhis office at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Martin Hairer whilehe was strolling on the campus of the University of Warwick,Manjul Barghava with the buildings of Princeton inthe background and Maryam Mirzakhani kneeling with afelt-tip pen in her hand on a large white sheet of drawingpaper unrolled on the floor, full of Riemann surfaces andformulas spread all around, while her little son was playingclose to her. Thanks to these short movies, we couldsee them in their daily lives, within the walls where theirbeautiful ideas came into their minds.Moreover, one cannot discount the speech of the Presidentof the Republic of South Korea, Park Geun-nye (awoman), given without notes or slides. This was a Koreantribute to mathematics and mathematicians, which wasindeed rather realistic, judging from the enormous technologicalprogress of the country, which has arisen fromthe ashes of the Korean War as a fully-developed societyin which research and education are on the frontline.Besides the vast choice of plenary and section lecturesin all the main research areas of mathematics, thespecial lectures were also very interesting, for examplethe Emmy Noether Lecture, which is given by a femalespeaker, this time the American Georgia Benkart, whoillustrated the connections between Schur–Weyl dualityand McKay correspondence. There was also a rangeof public lectures, such as the one given by Jim Simons,which the majority of participants didn’t miss, if for noother reason than to see in person the man who has madea fortune with his hedge funds and has then assigned aconsiderable part of it to financing structures and initiativesfor mathematics. He should be made a saint!As an aside, it’s useless to hope that the next ICMwill take place in a town closer to Europe, as the GeneralAssembly in Korea has approved Rio de Janeiro as thelocation for 2018. Nevertheless, let’s cheer up because forus Europeans the ICM will be easier to reach in 2022, asthe General Assembly in Rio will hopefully approve theproposal made for an ICM in Paris.These are not minor details. If for once in a while wecould save ourselves many long hours of flight, for us Europeansit would be great. It took a degree of heroic spiritto reach South Korea from Rome, which is not aroundthe corner and which has few direct flights to Seoul. But,strictly for the record, when the Italian delegates arrivedin Gyeongju for the General Assembly, after <strong>12</strong> hours offlight plus three of bullet train and one of bus, we feltashamed because we met Alice Dickenstein, the newVice-president of the IMU, who had arrived from Argentinavia Dallas, after travelling for 25 hours, but seemedin perfect shape, unlike us who were sleepy with jet-lagand starving.The presentation of the Brazilian bid for ICM 2018has been approved with obvious enthusiasm, not leastbecause it will be the first time that the ICM will takeplace in the southern hemisphere. We couldn’t preventourselves from smiling when, during the slide show aboutthe architectural structures proposed for the event, wesaw a picture of the Maracanino, a stadium slightly smallerthan the legendary Maracana but not far from it.Even if I risk being boring by underlining the femalepresence, one should say that at this ICM, as far as womenspeakers are concerned, the United States featured11 women speakers (two among the 21 glorious plenaryspeakers: Maryam Mirzakahni and Vera Serganova),France seven and Italy three, while Canada, Germany,UK, Israel, the Netherlands and New Zealand had oneeach. This means that among the sectional speakers (ofwhich there were 218) women represented around 11%of the list. This is still a small percentage but we believethat things will now improve. This ICM represented aturning point, as the award to Maryam Mirzakhani willset an impetus for change.And perhaps it would be nice to add that one day beforethe Opening Ceremony of the ICM, on <strong>12</strong> August,the International Congress of Women Mathematicians(ICWM <strong>2014</strong>) took place at the Ewha Womans Universityin Seoul and the invited speakers included DonnaTesterman, Hee Oh, Gabriella Tarantello (from my ownuniversity, “Tor Vergata” in Rome – a little bit of localpride is never inappropriate!), Laura Demarco, MotokoKotani, Jaya Iyer, Isabel Dotti and, last but not least,Ingrid Daubechies, IMU President until the end of thisyear, when the newly elected President Shigefumi Moriwill start his term.So think what you like. In Seoul, women mathematiciansexperienced great satisfaction, thanks to the masterstrokeof Maryam, the marvellous heroine of this unforgettable<strong>2014</strong> ICM!Elisabetta Strickland is a full professor ofalgebra at the University of Rome “TorVergata” and is Deputy President of INdAM,the Italian National Institute forAdvanced Mathematics. Since 2008, shehas been a delegate for individual memberson the EMS Council and, since January<strong>2014</strong>, she has been a member of the Women in MathematicsCommittee of the EMS. In 2009, she co-foundedthe first Gender Inter-university Observatory based inRome, Italy. She was in South Korea as Head of the ItalianDelegation at the IMU General Assembly.40 EMS Newsletter December <strong>2014</strong>
Short Report on ICM<strong>2014</strong>DiscussionMichel Waldschmidt (Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France) on behalf of the Committee for DevelopingCountries of the EMSThe ICM <strong>2014</strong> in Seoul has put a strong emphasis on theneed to improve the geographical distribution of mathematicalresearch. Under the NANUM programme, 1000mathematicians from developing countries were supportedand could participate in the conference. Three NA-NUM Regional Networking sessions were organised onthe first three evenings of the conference, one for LatinAmerica, one for Africa and Eastern Europe and one forAsia, where the participants from these regions who weresupported by the NANUM programme could meet.ICM <strong>2014</strong> started on 13 August. The day before, on<strong>12</strong> August, a symposium “Mathematics in Emerging Nations:Achievements and Opportunities” (MENAO) wasorganised by the International Mathematical Union.The Committee for Developing Countries participatedin these meetings. In particular, the Committee forDeveloping Countries had a booth during the MENAOevent, where a poster and a leaflet as well as a beamerpresentation were displayed.During international conferences, many publishershave a booth where they advertise and sell their recentbooks. ICM<strong>2014</strong> was no exception. Among the exhibitorswere many academic and publishing houses. At theend of the conference, most of them donated some oftheir remaining unsold books to our committee. Somerepresentatives from African institutes packed these 164books (with a total weight of <strong>12</strong>6 kg) and shipped themto their countries.ICM<strong>2014</strong> gave the opportunity for the Committee forDeveloping Countries and the Committee for EuropeanSolidarity to hold a joint meeting.The website of our committee provides more informationon our activities; in particular the homepagehttp://euro-math-soc.eu/EMS-CDC/index.phpdisplays the latest news from the EMS-CDC.Michel Waldschmidt, emeritus professorat the University Pierre et Marie Curie(Paris 6) where he has been teaching for40 years, is an expert in the theory of transcendentalnumbers and diophantine approximations.From 2001 to 2004 he wasPresident of the Mathematical Society ofFrance. He actively promotes the idea that developingcountries also need to have good mathematicians at alllevels, including at a research level. From 2005 to 2009,he was Vice-president of CIMPA (Centre Internationalde Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées). He is Chair ofthe Committee for Developing Countries of the EuropeanMathematical Society. Being retired has given him moretime for his hobbies: ultra marathons and trekking.Update on Recent Global DigitalMathematics Library (GDML)DevelopmentsThierry Bouche (Université Joseph Fourier – Grenoble I, Saint-Martin d’Hères, France)Since the start of the millennium, the mathematical communityhas been considering building a Worldwide DigitalMathematics Library, where all written mathematicswould be stored and made accessible. This objective hasbeen pursued in isolation by many people around theworld but it seems that the global goal has regained momentumthis year: the EuDML initiative has been formedunder the auspices of the EMS, an IMU-sponsored studyhas been published by the US National Research Council(see this newsletter’s September <strong>2014</strong> editorial) and anumber of activities have taken place in association withthe ICM.1. A meeting to discuss the next steps towards realisingthe GDML was held on 17 August at ICM<strong>2014</strong> in Seouland attended by 14 participants in person and eight remoteparticipants. Following a wide-ranging afternoondiscussion, an eight-person working group (WG) wascreated, under the sponsorship of the IMU: Patrick Ion(Chair), Thierry Bouche, Bruno Buchberger, MichaelKohlhase, Jim Pitman, Olaf Teschke, Stephen Watt andEric Weisstein.The group began meeting immediately after the mainsession. It has been charged with designing a roadmapbefore the end of the year covering the practical nextEMS Newsletter December <strong>2014</strong> 41
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