CLOSING REMARKS

 

may2017
© SESAME: President of the SESAME Council, Chris Llewellyn Smith, inviting the Director General of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, to the podium to return the model SESAME magnet
May2018
© SESAME: Director General of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, with the model SESAME magnet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Llewellyn Smith (President of the SESAME Council): Before closing the ceremony, I have a very pleasant duty to perform.

Just over two years ago, in April 2015, when the CESSAMag project was launched, Commissioner Moedas (as he has reminded us) visited SESAME with the then Director General of CERN, Rolf Heuer. In a very nice gesture, the Commissioner gave Professor Toukan half of a model of a magnet, and Rolf gave me the other half. It was understood that at the end of the project, when the real magnets had been built and installed and SESAME would not need a model anymore, we would put the two halves together and give the model to CERN.

I hope the model is together. At half past eight this morning Yasser Khalil [SESAME Administrative Director] and I were on our knees in his office with super glue and it did not really work, but I think it will stay together.

This is the model, and I would like to invite Fabiola Gianotti [Director General of CERN] to come to the stage so that I can return it to her.

(Chris Llewellyn Smith hands the model over to Fabiola Gianotti)

May2018
© SESAME: Director General of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, handing the model SESAME magnet to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas

Fabiola Gianotti: It is very heavy! Thank you very much Sir Chris. I would like to propose with your permission that I call the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, and I would like to hand this model over to him. Perhaps it could be the first piece of a new accelerator in Brussels. Who knows!

Carlos Moedas: Thank you so much. This means a lot to me. From my heart I really am very moved because it has been two years and a half, and it has been wonderful and it is thanks to projects like yours that I get up in the morning and I feel that I am doing something with purpose to my life, but more to your life. Thank you.

Chris Llewellyn Smith: Finally, I would like to thank all our distinguished speakers for their very uplifting remarks. I now invite you all to go to the reception, then join the tours of SESAME, and I declare the ceremony ended.