Student reporter is the social interactive arm of the Tropentag conference which takes place annually in Germany. It was started in the year 2010 as a connection medium between the conference and the participants globally, broadcasting conference information/ details to the public through social media; Blog (http://blog.tropentag.de), Youtube( tropentag), Facebook(Tropentag Student Network),Flickr( tropentag) and Twitter(tropentag@tropentag). The management and the organization of the Tropentag Student reporter is controlled by the ATSAF secretariat in Hohenheim; which organizes and coordinates the call of application and selection of student reporters together with other modalities involved in the preparation for the workshop.

Selected Student Reporters always come from diverse backgrounds, which are not necessarily leaned towards Journalism but some experience in social media, report writing as well as journalism is of added advantage.

Therefore the selected candidates take part in technical introductory training workshop in journalism/ social media 2 days prior to the Tropentag conference. However, the participants are only selected from the European affiliated Universities due to the technicalities involved in the transport.The period between the call for papers and the final organizational meeting is about four months.

Student reporter as part of the Tropentag Conference, is funded by ATSAF which covers basics expenses like transport and accommodation, as well as a little pocket money for food and other expenses during the conference. Another possible funding body is FIAT.

Tropentag 2012 gave the third opportunity for the a participation of Student Reporters. According to Angela Schaffert, out of the 85 applicants, 12 were selected based on the already mentioned criteria, as well as the completion of the application forms. The main focus of the 2012 conference will be in the area of Resilience of agricultural systems against crises, with the supporting topics being in the area of (1) Resilience of Animal Production Systems; (2) Resilience in Plants and Soils; (3) Engineering towards Resilience; (4) Resilience in a social context, or (5) keynote presentations. First interactive meeting, gave an impression of an enthusiastic team which is hopeful to make the world involved I the major topics to be discussed during the conference. The first day in the training in the different technical groups (photography, social media, etc), already gives a clear indication that the work for the Student Reporters has already began.Follow us on the provided social network..

Day one photos