A world class ecosystem of pan-African transformation through mathematical sciences is launched in Rwanda

Inside this issue:

The launch of AIMS in Rwanda

1

International Women’s Day events

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AIMS-University of 1/4 Southampton signing Quantum Leap Africa workshop

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Researcher talk

2

Seminar

2

Visiting researcher 2 Journal Club

2

Student updates

3

Science communication competitions

3

Bootcamp for Novice Educators

3

Cape Winelands Education District Mini-Conference

4

ADEA Triennale

4

Announcements

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Africa’s first and biggest network of centres of excellence, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), in partnership with the Government of Rwanda, today announced the launch of AIMS in Rwanda, an ecosystem of pan-African transformation that will leverage scientific innovation, learning and research to apply solutions to the continent’s challenges. The official launch took place at the Kigali Convention Centre (KCC), with H.E. President Paul Kagame as the guest of honour. “We are collaborating with AIMS to develop an ecosystem of panAfrican institutions with a trans-

continent.” President Paul Kagame said at the gathering. Click here to read more.

International Women’s Day events

Mrs Mary Turok inspires learners at Masiphumelele High School

AIMS South Africa hosted a variety of events from 6-11 March 2017 to celebrate International Women’s Day as part of the AIMS Women in Stem initiative. Events included outreach to secondary schools where learners were given the opportunity to listen to female role models who encouraged them to follow careers in STEM fields. Schools visited included Masiphumelele

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formative agenda. We all recognise that AIMS' education model is an important tool for development and progress on our

Mentors chat to students after the talks at Muizenberg High School

High School and Muizenberg High School. AIMS South Africa also hosted a public lecture by Prof. NP Makunga, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, who gave a talk titled: ‘Plants for human health: venturing into traditions of old with a biotechnological toolkit.’

AIMS-University of Southampton signing On 6 March 2017 at a special event in Cape Town, Prof. Barry Green, AIMS and Prof. Colin Grant, Vice-President (International), University of Southampton and , signed a partnership agreement between AIMS and the University. Continued on page 4

Continued on page 3.

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Research Centre updates Quantum Leap Africa workshop

Mini-Workshop in Pure Mathematics A mini-workshop in Pure Mathematics was held on 29 March 2017. The speakers and their talks were as follows:  Philibert Nang, ‘On a class of D-modules on Grepresentations’  Alberto Cazzaniga, Refined

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Donaldson-Thomas Invariants of Framed Sheaves on P3 Nantsoina Cynthia Ramiharimanana, ‘Minimal ramification problem’ Andry Nirina Rabenantoandro, ‘Torsions of elliptic curves and Drinfeld modules’

Visiting researcher

Dr Lochowski

In March the AIMS Research Centre welcomed Dr Rafal Lochowski, an AIMS Associate Research Fellow, who will be visiting until 23 April 2017. Dr Lochowski's research area is in Financial Mathematics. During his time here he will be focussing on his research projects and collaborations, while also supervising two of the AIMS Structured Master’s students.

Workshop participants

Prof. Bruce Bassett, Head of the Cosmology Group and Dr Yabebal Fantaye, ARETÉ Junior Research Chair, from AIMS South Africa were part of the scientific organising committee chaired by Prof. Neil Turok of the inaugural Quantum Leap Africa (QLA) data science workshop. The three-day event, which brought about 30 leading researchers in data science from around the world to Kigali, explored possible themes, topics and ideas that might help ensure that QLA is both

world-class and highly relevant to Africa's needs in the 21st Century. The researchers and practitioners spanned industry, academia as well as the NGOworld of development, ensuring a diverse set of perspectives about the future of data science, Big Data and artificial intelligence and its role in leading the transformation of Africa.

Cosmology Group seminar On 6 March, the Cosmology Group at AIMS South Africa hosted a seminar by Dr Simone Aiola from Princeton University. His talk was titled: ’Cosmological Results From Two-Season ACTPol Data.’

Dr Aiola

Journal Club

Dr Bubacarr Bah, the German Research Chair based at AIMS South Africa also attended the workshop.

On 7 March, Dr Tom Brown, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies gave a talk titled: ‘An Interdisciplinary View on the Transition to an Energy System Based on Renewables.’

Researcher talk Dr Brown

On 14 March, Prof Philibert Nang, Ecole Normale Supérieure of Libreville, Gabon, gave a talk titled: ‘We will introduce "elementary" notions on analytic D-modules.’ Dr Mialebama Bouesso

Dr Andre S E Mialebama Bouesso, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Centre gave a talk at the 2nd Colloquium on the Practice of Modelling and Numerical Simulation held at Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville on 22 March 2017.

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Prof. Nang

He spoke on the intersection of ideals in a polynomial ring over a finite chain ring. The Colloquium was organised by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie and was held from 21 to 23 March 2017.

Dr Sadem

On 28 March, Dr Christian Kenfack Sadem, Mesoscopic and Multilayer Structures Laboratory, Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, University of Dschang, Cameroon, gave a talk titled: ‘Effects of spatial scales on the inference of drivers behind species distribution.’

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International Women’s Day events cont...

Student updates The August 2016 intake and the January 2017 intake completed the following review courses: Entrepreneurship case studies (Stefan Jaehnichen, TU Berlin); Bioinformatics (Paolo Zuliani, Newcastle University) and Computational Algebra (Wolfram Decker and Gerhard Pfister, TU Kaiserslautern). Some students also joined visiting researcher Dr Elissa Schwartz on a hike up Lion’s Head on 18 March 2017.

Dr Makunga

In her talk, she encouraged the audience to share their research with a general public “If you want to be part of the knowledge economy, it is crucial to keep the science message going, and to be able to use all the different communication platforms.” A social media campaign was run in which photos of AIMS staff, lecturers and students appeared with their message on what they would say to inspire young girls to study STEM.

A follow-up Women in STEM mentoring session was held on 11 March to inspire and empower AIMS women students and alumni to achieve their full potential so that they can empower girls and young women in their communities. The week of activities was organised by Dr Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe with the assistance of staff from AIMS South Africa and AIMSSEC, researchers and AIMS alumni.

Science communication competitions Scientists have realised that publishing a scientific paper is only half the job done. There is now an ever growing need for scientists to communicate their work to a wider audience. To this end, various institutions have established science communication competitions aimed at encouraging young scientists to find creative ways of presenting their work so as to engage a lay audience. One such competition is the SAASTA Young Science Communicator's Competition (YSCC) in which one of the August intake students, Ms Chinenye Jane Ani, participated. Ms Ani's article entitled “The

fall of mathematics: A blessing or a curse?” was commended by the judges. Also, on 7 March, SKA SA hosted a FameLab heat in Cape Town. FameLab is an international science communication competition that challenges contestants to present a scientific topic of their choice in only three minutes, without using slides, and only using props they are able to carry onto the stage. Two August intake students, Mr Samuel Asuquo Edet and Mr Evans Yeboah, took up the challenge and their presentations received positive feedback from the judging panellists.

Bootcamp for Novice Educators On 4 March 2017, Ms Sinobia Kenny delivered a professional development workshop at the Centre for the Book, Cape Town. The professional development was designed for teachers who are in their first three years of teaching who have the desire for further guidance and support. The sessions focused on consciousness, competence and creativity as a teacher. Ms Kenny delivered a workshop on Reflective Practice: The Reflective Teacher and was accompanied by Ms Zethu Ntshiba, an AIMSSEC alumnus, as her VIP guest.

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In Ms Ntshiba’s words, “The boot camp was reviving and eye -opening. Thank you for inviting me.”

Ms Ntshuba and Ms Kenny at Centre for the Book

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Signing cont...

ADEA Triennale ST1: Implementing education and lifelong learning for sustainable development;  ST2: Promoting science, mathematics and ICT;  ST3: Implementing education for African cultural renaissance and pan-African ideals; and  ST4: Building Peace and Global Citizenship through education. The Triennale brought together and promoted dialogue among policy makers and Ministers of Education in African countries, academics, stakeholders from the private sector and development cooperation partners in education such as The MasterCard Foundation, the African Development Bank Group and UNICEF. During the Triennale, Dr Kimpolo presented the programmes done at different AIMS centres including the courses taught and mode of delivery while Ms Tshuma presented a paper on how the language of instruction plays an important role in enhancing understanding and performance in mathematics under the Promoting Science Mathematics and ICT subtheme. 

The partnership includes a funding contribution by the university to AIMS and built-in academic exchange items such as faculty travelling to teach at AIMS centres in Africa and supervising AIMS student research projects. At AIMS, the partnership will be managed as part of the ForExcellence partnership program. Others in attendance at the event from the university included Prof. James Vickers, Director, Southampton Doctoral College and Professor of Mathematics, Mr Keith Johnstone, Director of International Relations & Development and Ms Melissa Gibson, Regional Director, International Office.

From AIMS South Africa, Dr Bubacarr Bah, German Research Chair and Ms Linda Camara, Communications Officer attended the event. Prof. Vickers, Mr Johnstone and Ms Gibson alto took the opportunity to visit AIMS South Africa on 7 March 2017. They were taken on a tour of the facilities, had a meeting with Prof. Green and Prof. Vickers gave a talk to AIMS students and researchers titled: ‘Is time travel possible?’ After which the visitors had tea with AIMS students, researchers and staff followed by talks by students and alumni and a presentation on the University.

Cape Winelands Education District Mini-Conference On the 25 March 2017, Ms Sinobia Kenny represented AIMSSEC at the Cape Winelands Education District MiniConference. The conference was a collaboration event between the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA) – Western Cape. The conference took place at Worcester Gymnasium Secondary School and led by the WCED. It was also an opportunity to launch AMESA in the district. Ms Kenny delivered professional development training to mathematics teachers from the Senior Phase. Alongside is a picture of Ms Kenny with colleagues from the University of Cape Town, CPUT and Stellenbosch

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University. There were also facilitators from the WCED and private organisations.

Dr Charles Kimpolo (Senior Bilingual Program Manager AIMS Industry Initiative (AIMS II)); Ms Jihane Lamouri, Gender Officer, Skills for Employability Program (AIMS Rwanda); Ms Lindiwe Tshuma (AIMSSEC); and Ms Hendrina Doroba (Executive Director – Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE))

The Association for Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Triennale was held at Abdou Diouf International Conference Center (CICAD) in Dakar, Senegal from the 14 to 17 March 2017. The Triennale’s theme was revitalising Education towards the 2030 Global Agenda and Africa’s Agenda 2063; with four sub themes namely:

AIMSSEC newsletter Please click here to view the 11th edition of the AIMSSEC newsletter.

AIMSSEC looks forward to delivering workshops at the AMESA Regional Conference in May 2017 and the AMESA National Congress in July 2017.

Announcements Applications for Teaching Assistants for the 2017-2018 academic year commencing in August 2017 are now open. AIMS South Africa needs a dedicated group of advanced students and academics as tutors for its academic year, to assist in its exciting teaching programme. For more information and to apply please visit https://www.nexteinstein.org/apply/teaching-assistants/?lang=en Applications close when all positions are filled. Enquiries please contact Prof. Jeff Sanders, Academic Director of AIMS ([email protected])

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