A positive highlight of the COVID-19 situation has been the large number of grassroots-level innovations brought forth by Indian start-ups, entrepreneurs, and researchers to counter the pandemic. A thriving culture of innovation and entrepreneurship is necessary to nurture this spirit. In this regard, the fourth edition of the National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC) is currently open for applications.

The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded our need for virtual meeting platforms and pushed conference organisers to innovate to ensure that scientific networking continues to flourish in these troubled times. The Monsoon Brain Meeting 2020, held in June 2020, aimed to embrace the virtual format and use it to facilitate discussions on and around neuroscience, as reported here by Annapoorna, one of the attendees of the meeting.

Genetic variations and diversity both within and between populations play an important role in human health and disease. The Indo-US workshop on Human Diversity and Health Disparities brought together researchers from several different fields to discuss the importance of this often-neglected dimension in public health and biomedical research.

The International Summit on Women in STEM -"Visualizing the Future: New Skylines" was organized in January this year by the Department of Biotechnology and International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). The following is a report by Zill e Anam, a young scientist who had a ring-side view of the proceedings.

India is ranked fourth in the world with regards to the number of malaria cases reported per year. A three-day meeting encompassing the 30th National Congress on Parasitology and 1st Global Summit on Malaria Elimination (NCP-GSME) was organized in New Delhi to discuss some latest advances and translational aspects of parasitology research, including strategies for malaria elimination.