Voices from around the world fill the entrance hall of the Study and Information Center this morning, as Tropentag Conference participants line up for registration. The energy level is high, and colleagues greet each other with smiles and handshakes, many with poster tubes over their shoulders, ready to present their research in the coming days. But whom exactly might you find on the campus of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague this morning? Well, in the last two hours, I’ve met nine academics and students hailing from eight different countries. From the Netherlands to China, from Mexico to Myanmar, they’ve come from diverse backgrounds to converge at Tropentag 2014. They all share one thing: enthusiasm to share findings, exchange ideas, and discuss solutions in the fields of development, food security, agroforestry and more. There are young people here who are beginning their careers or furthering their education. Diego from Mexico is working on his Masters in Sustainable Resource Management in Munich. He is looking forward to talks about development and international forestry. Ghayoor Fatima from Pakistan, and Thinnwe Htwe from Myanmar, are doctoral students in Kassel, Germany; they are eager to hear research on livelihood production and value chains. I also interviewed more senior researchers, like Dr. Abdelaziz Karamalla and Siham Rahmatalla, both professors from Sudan excited to be in Eastern Europe for the first time. You can see my interview with them in a video on our YouTube page. Rahmatalla is at Tropentag for a second year, having presented at Tropentag 2013 in Stuttgart. This year she’s presenting a poster about turmeric supplementation in yogurt and consumer acceptance. I’m looking forward to hearing Rahmatalla’s results, as well as the findings from the many other researchers I met this morning. It looks like it’s going to be an exciting three days, with words like ‘species,’ ‘cultivation,’ ‘root crops,’ ‘forest structure,’ and ‘mitigation’ echoing off the walls. And here's the link to the short video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FUXByUPmYc