As Scientific Programme Chair, myself, and co-Chair Dr Khaled Sarraf, we would like to welcome you to the 43^rd SICOT Orthopaedic World Congress in Cairo, Egypt on 21-23 November 2023.

After a successful meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last year, we are moving to the Middle Eastern part of the world to hold the world congress. This meeting will be special as this is the first time that we are co-organizing it with the Egyptian Orthopaedic Association.

With Egypt being in a region spanning across Africa and Middle East, we hope our congress will attract many surgeons from around the area, to participate, to stimulate and to exchange ideas.

We have organized a two ½ day main programme - a compact, yet comprehensive and inspirational programme for everyone. Apart from our local Egyptian orthopaedic faculties. we have invited many esteemed faculties from all around the world to share their valuable experiences in eight academic rooms and one industry room over the two ½ -day period. We aim to provide an interactive platform in each session, enabling our participants to ask questions, involve in case discussions, and participate in live polling. As SICOT strives to be diverse, equal, and inclusive. We maintain to ensure faculty representation is truly diverse, taking into account ethnicity and gender.

Apart from our international faculties, we have invited three world esteemed plenary speakers and thirteen keynote speakers to our congress. Our plenary speakers are Professor Francesco Falez from Italy discussing about hip – spine relationship on hip arthroplasty, Professor Fredereic Schuind from Belgium on the integration of AI for hand amputees and Dr Vaibhav Bagaria from India on the impact of robotics on performing knee arthroplasty.

For the peri-Congress activities, we maintain to have an ever-popular Education Day for the orthopaedic trainees and young fellows. Based on the feedback from previous year, we shall organize ½ day of subspecialty day of which it will concentrate on three sub-specialties, namely Hip, Paediatric Orthopaedics and Trauma, as well as a research workshop.

No successful congress can be made possible without our industry partners. Our exhibition hall will be filled with our many different industry partners, highlighting their latest products. These include our well-known international companies as well as local business, displaying their specialized products. In addition, we have a separate industry room this year over the two ½ days, with workshops organized by our industry partners. This enables registrants a better hands-on experience on selected specialized products. Please do register in advance, as space is limited. Otherwise, registrants are welcome to go to courtesy room and exhibition hall to mingle with our industry representatives.

With such an exciting programme, we cannot wait to see you all in person in Egypt. Egypt is the land of the Pharaohs. There are ample exciting opportunities will allow attendees to visit. The string of social and networking events alongside the academic platter will ensure everyone will have something memorable to look forward to.

Margaret Fok
Scientific Programme Chair