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Second edition of Next Einstein Forum Africa Science Week begins in 35 countries
KIGALI, Rwanda, 10 September 2018 – The Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in partnership with Robert Bosch Stiftung, today announced the beginning of NEF Africa Science Week in 35 African countries throughout the months of September, October and December 2018. NEF Africa Science Week are led [...]
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Cities must lead the clean energy drive, says report
Did you know, that poor households in cities spend 14-22% of their income on energy? As urban growth intensifies energy use, cities must lead with efficient fuels and renewables. Cities can implement practical solutions to meet the need of the urban under-served through development models that slow carbon emissions & shift to cleaner cooking fuels [...]
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Cities must lead the clean energy drive, says report
May 17, 2019 | Blog
Did you know, that poor households in cities spend 14-22% of their income on energy? As urban growth intensifies energy use, cities must lead with efficient fuels and renewables. Cities can implement practical solutions to meet the need of the urban under-served through development models that slow carbon emissions & shift to cleaner cooking fuels [...]
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Scientists have created a silicon beating heart
May 7, 2019 | Blog
Researchers have created an artificial, silicone heart to help combat the shortage of donor hearts. The silicone heart has been developed by Nicholas Cohrs, a doctoral student in the group led by Wendelin Stark, Professor of Functional Materials Engineering at ETH Zurich. It looks like a real heart. And this is the goal of the first [...]
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Young African Robotics Designers Sparking at Pan African Robotic competition in Senegal (PARC 2018)
May 6, 2019 | Blog
Technology is taking part everywhere in this modern era of time, specially to face the challenges that require a sustainable development and help less fortune communities to have the privilege of standard living conditions. Africa by its high potential and promising future should be in the front line for implementing the technology that help local [...]
Black Holes, Africa and the Future of Astrophysics
| Blog
In a major scientific breakthrough, astronomers on 10 April 2019 unveiled the globally anticipated image, which reveals a halo of hot gas and plasma around the event horizon of a black hole. This discovery confirms, yet again, the predictions from Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity and includes the contributions of scientists from Africa. The involvement [...]
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Africa Must Produce Technology
April 30, 2019 | Blog
Maths and science key to future, writes Neil Turok. Angelina Lutambi was born into a peasant family in Tanzania’s Dodoma region, where HIV and Aids has decimated much of the population. Her future could easily have been bleak – but Lutambi had a keen aptitude for maths. Today she is a senior research scientist at [...]
African Higher Education Summit in Dakar, Senegal
March 10, 2019 | Blog
Live Event: The African Higher Education Summit Dakar, Senegal Join global policy makers, entrepreneurs, academics and international development partners as they develop a common vision geared towards transforming Africa’s higher education system. Dr. Khumbah: “Technical mastery differentiates the developed world from the underdeveloped.” Dr. Green: “Africa has no time to waste. We need to look at initiatives [...]
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At Davos 2019, NEF Experts Examine How to Accelerate Innovation in Africa
March 1, 2019 | Blog, Multimedia
By building a home-grown scientific and technology capacity, added to a pan-African ecosystem of knowledge and innovation, Africa can get past most of the stumbling blocks hindering its development, said experts from the Next Einstein Forum at Davos 2019. The experts took part in ‘Conversations in coLaboratory’, a space for world leaders to engage in [...]
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I have no doubt the next great scientific minds will be from Africa
February 5, 2019 | Blog
Low levels of investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education have the potential to gravely affect Africa’s growth, impeding the competitiveness of many of its nations on a global scale. It is time for a wake-up call. There are signs the continent is thriving economically. But is it sustainable without a workforce that will build [...]
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The Next Einstein Forum publishes first issue multidisciplinary journal Scientific African and accompanying Scientific African Magazine
December 20, 2018 | Blog, News
Kigali, Rwanda – 20 December 2018 The Next Einstein Forum (NEF) – Africa’s global forum for science in Africa – is pleased to announce the launch of the first issue of Scientific African, and its sister publication Scientific African Magazine. Published quarterly, Scientific African is a peer-reviewed, open access, inter- and multidisciplinary scientific journal that is dedicated to [...]
The Next Einstein Forum launches search for Africa’s top scientific talent for prestigious Fellows Class
November 13, 2018 | Blog
We’re thrilled to launch the search for the third Class of NEF Fellows, 2019 – 2021. Application to the NEF Fellows programme is open to Africans from around the world – including those who currently reside in the Diaspora – in all fields of science, including the social sciences and technology fields. Applicants must be [...]
IBM Files Patent for Blockchain-Based AR Helper System
November 7, 2018 | Blog
IBM has filed a patent for a blockchain-based system which will prevent players of augmented reality games entering physical spaces that are undesirable. Augmented reality is a technology which adds layers to physical reality. An example is Zombie GO, an AR game which places zombie in real life or perhaps the most famous example, Pokemon Go. AR can have [...]
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L’Afrique prend sa place dans l’avancée de l’intelligence artificielle
| Blog
La grande majorité des experts en IA se trouvent en Amérique du Nord, en Europe et en Asie. L’Afrique, en particulier, est à peine représentée. Ce manque de diversité peut non intentionnellement enraciner les biais algorithmiques et construire une discrimination pour les produits dérivés de l’IA. Ce n’est pas le seul défi : moins de [...]
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Africa’s future needs a better research culture and not just for scientists
November 5, 2018 | Blog
Of the many developmental challenges facing Africa, scientific research doesn’t often rise to the top of the discussion agenda, though thankfully that has been changing with high profile initiatives like the Next Einstein Forum. And yet research and development will be key to the kinds of improvements that African citizens need and expect. The priorities, or [...]
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Look to Africa to advance artificial intelligence
October 25, 2018 | Blog
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing society as profoundly as the steam engine and electricity have done. But unlike past technological revolutions, the AI revolution offers a unique chance to improve lives without opening up and exacerbating global inequalities. That will require widening of the locations where AI is done. The vast majority of experts are in [...]
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Gov’t pledges 1% GDP to support STEM education
October 9, 2018 | Blog
Government has pledged a minimum of one per cent of GDP towards the promotion of research and development expenditure of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education in the country. Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has said in many advanced countries, conservative estimates have it that the direct and indirect contribution of [...]
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Second edition of Next Einstein Forum Africa Science Week begins in 35 countries
September 10, 2018 | Blog, News
KIGALI, Rwanda, 10 September 2018 – The Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in partnership with Robert Bosch Stiftung, today announced the beginning of NEF Africa Science Week in 35 African countries throughout the months of September, October and December 2018. NEF Africa Science Week are led [...]
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Rwandans Turn to SMS As Mobile Phone Ownership Grows to 70 Per Cent
June 16, 2015 | Blog
More Rwandans have turned to short text messages (SMSs) to communicate, with the number of SMSs sent last year rising by over six billion for on-net texts compared to the previous year. According to the telecom sector 2014 report by the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), close to 7.4 billion on-net short messages were sent [...]
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Citizen science in action: can we forge a smarter democracy?
| Blog
What makes a good policy? In an ideal world, policies would be put in place to change something for the better. In order to tell whether a policy works, we would collect evidence – objective, non-partisan data that tells us whether the thing we’ve changed is having a positive effect. And before even getting that [...]
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Amazon to deliver parcels directly to car boots
| Blog
Amazon is testing an addition to its Prime subscription postal service that will see parcels delivered directly to customer’s cars. The pilot service is a partnership between Amazon, DHL and Audi, and will allow a small group of Prime subscribers in Munich, Germany, to receive deliveries straight to the boots of their cars. Michael Pasch, [...]
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Biometrics May Ditch The Password, But Not The Hackers
| Blog
Passwords get hacked — a lot. In an effort to move beyond passwords, big companies are embracing biometric technology: the use of fingerprints, iris scans or voice recognition for user identification. To heighten security, smartphones are being outfitted with biometric features. But, ditching passwords for biometrics may not make the hackers go away. Selfie Security [...]
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RWANDA: NEW EDUCATION STRATEGY PRIORITISES TECHNOLOGY
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“The Government is designing a strategic plan that will make it possible for the education sector to adopt Information and Communication Technology as a primary enabler of access to education. The Minister for Education, Prof. Silas Lwakabamba, said Rwandans need to take bold steps including the acquisition of computers by teachers to avail digital content [...]
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Big Idea 2015: The Coming Micropayment Disruption
| Blog
In this series of posts, Influencers and members predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2015. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BigIdeas2015 in the body of your post). The innovation that will shape the coming year, I think, will be the consumer use of digital currencies, such as bitcoin and [...]
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Tesla’s $13,000 battery could keep your home online in a blackout
| Blog
Elon Musk is a man who likes to make waves. Whether it’s privatizing space exploration or shaking up commuting with the Hyperloop high speed transport system, the billionaire technocrat aims big. Now his electric car company, Tesla, is planning to change the way people power their homes. In a tweet last month, Musk announced that Tesla would [...]
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When ‘good enough’ is not good enough
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Apple’s product launches are covered with breathless enthusiasm usually reserved for royal weddings and vaccines for dreaded diseases. The recent launch of the iPhone6 featured an exciting new technology – ApplePay – which, if widely adopted, will allow Apple’s discerning customers to make electronic payments from their phones in situations where they would have used [...]
Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?
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PAYING for a taxi ride using your mobile phone is easier in Nairobi than it is in New York, thanks to Kenya’s world-leading mobile-money system, M-PESA. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the country’s largest mobile-network operator, it is now used by over 17m Kenyans, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the adult population; around 25% of [...]
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First Solar-Backed Off-Grid Innovator to Capitalize on Kenya Experience
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Powerhive, Inc. today announced that its industry-leading portfolio of off-grid metering and control solutions has successfully completed over two years of field testing in Kenya, paving the way for its commercialization and scale-up. With financial and technical backing from First Solar, Inc. FSLR, -1.97% a leading global provider of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy solutions, Powerhive [...]
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Bringing Women’s Perspectives to Africa’s Engineering Solutions
June 15, 2015 | Blog
In September 2014, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, I made a commitment on behalf of Ashesi to have gender balance in our new engineering program. Gender balance is rare in the world of engineering education, but we believe it’s necessary to aim for inclusion. More importantly, we believe in making sure that future [...]
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Far Out, Man: 13.1bn-Year-Old Galaxy Is Most Distant Yet Seen By Humans
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Galaxy EGS-zs8-1 has moved 30bn light-years away from Earth since it was born: ‘We’re actually looking back through 95% of all time to see this galaxy’ A team of astronomers has measured a galaxy farther than any other ever seen by human beings, reporting this week that the ancient star system offers a glimpse of [...]
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Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Logs Sol 4000, Digs Spirit of St. Louis Crater
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After investigating some flat, light and dark toned rocks around Spirit of St. Louis Crater in April, Opportunity chalked up another milestone achievement for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission – the 4000th sol or Martian day of surface operations – then did what she does best. By month’s end, the robot field geologist was closing [...]
Citizen Scientists Discover Five New Supernovas
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More than 40,000 citizen stargazers have helped to classify over 2 million celestial objects and identify five never-before-seen supernovas, in a massive example of citizen science at work. An amateur astronomy project of cosmic proportions, established by scientists at the Australian National University, asked volunteers to look through images taken by the SkyMapper telescope and [...]
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How A Computer Can Help Your Doctor Better Diagnose Cancer
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Correctly diagnosing a person with cancer — and identifying the specific type of cancer — makes all the difference in successfully treating a patient. Today your doctor might draw from a dozen or so similar cases and a big book of guidelines. But what if he or she could instead plug your test results and [...]
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The Hubble Space Telescope: ‘It’s a terrific comeback story’
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gathered crowd to watch. On it was to appear the first ever image from Hubble, Nasa’s powerful, sparkling space telescope. That, at least, was the plan. Plenty of the astronomers wanted this event – called, in the business, first light – to be held away from the media gaze. But the press had been invited [...]
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NEF on Flickr
NEF Community of Scientists Annual Meeting- Day3
