International Year of Light 2015 launched

The year 2015 was proclaimed by the United Nations the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015 (IYL2015) to raise global awareness about light-based technologies, to promote sustainable development and to provide solutions to global challenges in energy, education, agriculture and health. 2015 will be thus filled with light festivals, light and art, physics courses, lectures, astronomy, astrophysics, street lighting etc. The official Opening Ceremony took place on 19-20 January 2015 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France and was organised with the support of the EU-funded initiative LIGHT2015. Over 1,000 participants gathered for the event. It introduced all the key themes of the year, and aimed to inspire activities and events worldwide for the whole year. You can watch the presentations from the Ceremony here and follow the news on IYL on its website here. A combined roll-up of LASSIE-FP7 project and Swissphotonics (the Swiss national thematic network for photonics) was displaced at the ceremony. LASSIE-FP7 plans some activities linked to the IYL this year.