Enrique Padilla Award

Enrique Padilla Award is presented, during the MILSET Expo-Sciences International, to a delegation participating to the current ESI while having struggled to bring as many young participants as possible despite difficult conditions.

This award has been created in memory of Enrique Padilla from Argentina.   

Enrique Padilla

Mr. PADILLA left his country, Argentina, in1978 and moved to France as a political refugee. He worked in 1984 as a communications officer at the Cité des Sciences in Paris and participated in 1985 at the TOULOUSE ASSISES. He represented Argentina and was involved in a group for the preparation of an international organization that will become MILSET in July 1987, during the first ESI in Quebec; he is then elected at the MILSET Board of Directors.

He was deeply involved in the French associative life, the following year he will be one of the founders of France’s Petits Débrouillards. In parallel he worked with the MILSET General Secretariat of the Paris office and performed many missions in Europe and Latin America to prepare the ESI 1989 in Brest.   Returning to Argentina in 1989, he held short ministerial positions before working in the private industry. He created a MILSET antenna and an association of young scientists who organized their first Science Fair and attended the ESI 1991 in Prague.

Two years later he organized a large delegation to Amarillo, Texas for the ESI 1993 and overcome many difficulties such as Mexican neighbors getting into a Texas City. With Ibrahim El NAIMI, Carole CHARLEBOIS and Jean-Pierre TRILLET, he acted as one of the responsible for drafting and presenting the conclusions of working groups during the congress organized to redefine priorities of the International Science fairs. He then joined the MILSET Board chaired by Maurice HUPPÉ. On his return he helped organize the Latin America Science Fair Network.

A year later, in June 1994, he was the victim of a political attack in Buenos Aires; he was 49 years old.    

Criteria

• The organisation must be a MILSET member
• The organisation never received this award

Award

• The laureate receives a certificate at the ESI Closing Ceremony

Procedures

• Selection by the MILSET Executive Committee

Laureates