Students from universities across the country will converge on the Farm for the next two days to attend talks, panels and workshops geared toward educating the public about the spread of HIV and to brainstorm about how to encourage students to create chapters of the Stanford-founded awareness group FACE AIDS at other campuses.

Dr. Jim Kim, a winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people this year, will give the forum’s keynote address tonight at 7:00 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium. Kim is the co-founder of Partners in Health (PIH), the international aid organization that will receive the money raised by FACE AIDS. Freshmen may recognize him as a central figure in “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” one of the three books read and discussed by the class of 2010 during their first week on campus.

“The goal is to present an idea of why FACE AIDS has chosen PIH as the recipient for its fundraising campaign,” said senior John Fowler, director of media relations for FACE AIDS, which was founded by Stanford students last year.

Other speakers include Dr. Henry Epino, medical director of the PIH clinic in Rwanda, Dr. Shahira Ahmed from the Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Michael Reyes, director of the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center.

Students from other universities will be joining Stanford participants for the forum. Organizers expect attendees from a variety of campuses, including several universities in California and most of the Ivy League schools, Fowler said.

“I want to go into public health, so I’m really excited to meet Jim Kim,” said Blair Adornato, a senior at Gonzaga University who will be attending this weekend’s forum. “It’s also a wonderful opportunity to share ideas with other students about their campaigns.”

Adornato started a FACE AIDS chapter through his school’s Service Learning Group. Since beginning fundraising in October, the group has raised $650.

The Stanford chapter of FACE AIDS has sold tens of thousands of awareness pins over the past year and raised more than $250,000 for PIH, a global non-profit which operates in Rwanda and Lesotho as well as Latin America, Russia and the United States.