The 13th Asia-Oceania Symposium of Fire Science and Technology (AOSFST 2024) was held in Daegu, South Korea from October 21 to 24, 2024. As the most influential academic event in the field of fire science in Asia-Oceania area, this symposium has attracted hundreds of experts and scholars from various countries around the world, including Asia, Oceania, Europe, the Americas, and Africa.

Prof. Weiguo Song was invited to give a keynote speech on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics at the symposium, introducing the important role of pedestrians and evacuation dynamics in emergency situations such as fires. The complexity of pedestrian and evacuation phenomena and the common problems in current research were discussed, with a focus on the progress of our laboratory's research on multi-scenario pedestrian evacuation experiments and pedestrian detection and tracking. The basic laws of high-density crowd movement were analyzed, and the characteristics of vulnerable groups such as the elderly in pedestrian evacuation processes were explored. The progress of pedestrian detection and tracking research based on deep learning was introduced, and the future development trend of personnel evacuation direction was discussed. The questions raised by the attending scholars were also discussed. Prof. Song was also invited to serve as the chairman of the branch.

Prof. Weiguo Song has long been committed to the research of pedestrian and evacuation dynamics and fire dynamics. He has served as the convener and co-chair of the IAFSS Evacuation Forum, the topic leader of IAFSS Evacuation topic, the chairman of the Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics(PED) Conference Organizing Committee, and a member of the Steering Committee for PED and TGF conferences He has conducted continuous research and exploration in the theory, experiments, and models of pedestrian and evacuation dynamics.