The Ignacy Łukasiewicz Scholarship Programme, launched in 2015, is a joint scholarship initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, implemented within the framework of the Polish development aid. The objective of the Programme is to support the socio-economic development of the developing countries by improving the level of education and professional qualifications of their citizens. In addition, participation in the program allows the participants to learn the Polish language and culture, as well as to establish contacts with Polish students and researchers of the Polish universities. Ignacy Łukasiewicz, patron of the Programme, was a prominent Polish inventor, pharmacist, pioneer of the oil industry, creator of the kerosene lamp. As part of the recruitment for the academic year 2017/2018, 50 persons came to Poland.

During the Conference, the participants from Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Ghana, Vietnam and Iran could to listen to the lecture by Professor Mieczysław Muraszkiewicz from the Warsaw University of Technology, entitled: „New paradigms of science” in which he presented a historical overview of the changes of the paradigm in science from the times of Plato and Aristotle to the modern Big Data reality. Paulina Potasińska from the Polonicum Centre of Polish Language and Culture for Foreigners conducted a workshop on the Polish language and culture by showing why it is worth learning Polish and how to make its learning pleasant.