Mitacs extends its congratulations to the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) for its novel partnership in Mexico.
On February 7, 2014, the Governor of the Mexican State of Oaxaca, Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, and the Director General of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT), Dr. Enrique Cabrero Mendoza, announced an infrastructure grant of 43-million pesos (C$3.5 million) towards funding the construction and the operations of Casa Matematica Oaxaca (CMO), a research facility affiliated with the Banff International Research Station (BIRS).
The research facility will be built on a lot adjacent to El Centro de las Artes (CASA) that was generously donated by the eminent Mexican artist, Francisco Toledo. The Center is located in San Agustín Etla, a town that lies in a picturesque canyon in the foothills of the Sierra de San Felipe seventeen miles north of the city of Oaxaca.
Twenty-five BIRS workshops have already been selected to run at CMO in 2015. These will be in addition to the 52 workshops that will be hosted at BIRS’ Banff location. For the remaining part of the year, CMO will be hosting summer schools and math education workshops for high schools teachers and students.
BIRS was established in 2003 as a joint initiative of Canada’s Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences and the US Mathematical Sciences Research Institute with support from Mitacs. In 2005, Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) joined Alberta Innovation, the US National Science Foundation and Canada’s Natural Science and Engineering Research Council as BIRS supporters. The Station now provides a wealth of new and exciting opportunities for North American faculty and students, giving them access to their international counterparts at the highest levels and across all mathematical disciplines. For more information on BIRS, visit www.birs.ca.
