We had a large number of abstract submissions to the PENAPH First Technical Workshop being held in Chiang Mai on Dec 11-13, 2012. We accepted 34 abstracts out of 55 submissions as oral presentations. An additional 13 were accepted as posters. The abstracts were reviewed by a panel of 5 scientists drawn from the PENAPH core partners. Each abstract was reviewed by at least two reviewers based on a standard set of scoring criteria. Only the title and text of abstracts were provided to reviewers without the author’s names or other information. The scores were used to select abstracts and will also be used to prioritize the award of stipends. Individual authors will be informed of the results of the review by E-mail by Friday August 24^, 2012. If you submitted an abstract and have not received a notification, please alert us by sending an E-mail to  the Penaph-Abstract@cgiar.org address.

To be eligible to apply for a stipend you must EITHER be a citizen of a developing country OR a full time student from anywhere in the world AND have an oral or poster presentation accepted.

Those who are not presenting an abstract or poster may apply for a waiver of the conference fee. The only requirement is that applicants must EITHER be a citizen of a developing country OR a full time student from anywhere in the world.

Registration, payment of conference fees and hotel booking will be a three-step process. In the first step, participants will register and indicate if they wish to request a waiver of conference fees or stipend. The scientific committee will review all requests for waivers and inform those who have been awarded a waiver and give them a code for obtaining a conference ticket.

All those planning to attend should REGISTER and indicate if they would like to apply a waiver of the conference fee or stipend. The site for registration and to request a waiver is http://peworkshop.eventbrite.com/. You must request a waiver by September 10, 2012 to be considered. If you have submitted an abstract and are planning to request a stipend, please wait until you have received the E-mail with the results of the review of your abstract.

The second step will be payment of the conference fee (175 US Dollars). This is calculated to cover the cost of meals and logistical costs related to individual participation. If you have applied for a stipend or waiver, you will need to wait until we have reviewed your request to visit the payment site. If you have other sources of support, we request that you do not apply for a waiver as our ability to provide waivers is limited. We will inform you when the payment site is operational.

The Conference will be held at the Imperial Mae Ping Hotel in Chiang Mai and you can visit their website (http://www.imperialhotels.com/imperialmaeping) for a description of facilities. Room rates are 1,200 Baht for a single and 1,400 Bhat for a twin room including breakfast. A special rate with wifi is 100 Bhat more per day. The approximately 30 Bhat equal 1 US Dollar. For those who are granted a waiver of fees, they will still need to book and pay for their hotel. We will inform you when the hotel booking process is operational. Those with a waiver for conference fees will still need to book and pay for their hotel.

We estimate that the total local costs (conference fee, hotel and incidentals) will be 350 US Dollars. Participants without stipends will also need to budget for a visa and airfare to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai, as appropriate to their location.

We look forward to seeing you in Chiang Mai in December.

The Technical Workshop Organizing Committee