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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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West Africa’s biggest solar farm launched in Burkina Faso
December 5, 2017 | Africa, Blog, Highlight, News
Burkina Faso is now home to West Africa’s biggest solar farm, a 33-megawatt plant located in the town of Zatubi, outside the capital Ouagadougou. Records indicate that only about 20% of Burkina Faso’s 17 million population have access to the national power system. The majority depend on other unsustainable power generation options. Built at a cost [...]
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Hopes for HIV vaccine buoyed by start of second big trial
| Blog, Healthcare, Highlight, News
Scientists announced the launch of another large HIV vaccine efficacy study, fueling hopes for a protective shot against the virus that causes AIDS, despite past disappointments. The start of the new trial involving 2,600 women in southern Africa means that for the first time in more than a decade there are now two big HIV [...]
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Open access publishing platform launched for African scientists
| Blog, Highlight, News, Science
African scientists are getting their own open access publication platform, which will use a system of transparent, post-publication peer review. The African Academy of Sciences, in partnership with F1000, is launching AAS Open Research, which will offer immediate online publication to AAS-funded and affiliated researchers. Peer review reports will be published alongside the articles, together [...]
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Nairobi Scientists discover technology to manage maize pest
| Africa, Blog, Highlight, News
Scientists at the Nairobi-based International Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) announced Thursday they have discovered a technology that will manage ravaging pest that has worsened food insecurity in Africa. In a statement released in Nairobi last week, the scientists said the technology, Push-Pull, is effective in controlling the Fall Armyworm, which mainly prefer maize plants [...]
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How a West African lab made a 3D printer from toxic e-waste
| Africa, Blog, Highlight, Innovation, News
An innovative lab in Lomé, the capital city of Togo in West Africa created the first “Made in Africa” 3D printer using e-waste. WoeLab, a community tech hub established by architect Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou, 37, made the machine using little more than scrap printers, computers and scanners. The idea was born after Agbodjinou purchased a 3D [...]
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BIO GIRLS DAY 2017: EXPOSING GIRLS TO OPPORTUNITIES IN BIO-SCIENCES
December 1, 2017 | Blog, Feat Articles, Highlight, Science, The NEF Blog, Youth
The African Woman in Science and The Work Place The under-representation of African women in science and its related fields is a cause for concern. The stereotypical African woman in times past was seen as a weak figure better suited to doing ‘menial’ jobs including raising children and taking care of the home. Today, paradigms [...]
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Pruitt’s RFS Decision Defies Science, Undercuts Development of New Fuels
According to a Statement by Jeremy Martin, Union of Concerned Scientists, Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has finalized a change to biofuels policy, lowering the amount of cellulosic biofuel required under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). While political pressure from agricultural interests partly checked Pruitt’s effort to roll back the RFS [...]
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Ethiopia’s waste-to-energy plant is a first in Africa
November 30, 2017 | Blog, News
For half a century, the Koshe dump site has been the only landfill in Addis Ababa. As the city has expanded, the landfill – which used to lie on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital – has become part of the urban landscape, sprawling over an area the size of 36 football pitches and attracting [...]
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Call For Papers; Beyond the Debate: Climate Change as an Economic Opportunity for Africa
November 24, 2017 | Blog, News
This workshop will be co-located with the second edition of the EAI International Conference on Innovations and Interdisciplinary Solutions for Underserved Areas (InterSol2018) (http://interdisciplinarysolutions.org/) to be held as a pre-event of the Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering (NEF GG) on March 24-25, 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda. All Authors of accepted papers (one author per paper) [...]
Africa must keep its rich, valuable data safe from exploitation
Data is being driven by major international research collaborations like the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project. This and similar initiatives are producing volumes of data the continent has never witnessed before. All of that data then needs to be carefully managed throughout every stage of the research project. That’s why data stewardship – a job that didn’t exist in academia [...]
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Harnessing the healing power of stem cells
| Blog
Newly selected Next Einstein Fellow Kevin Dzobo is a man with a simple desire of bringing the healing power of stem-cell therapies to ordinary patients. He is a specialist at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology & University of Cape Town. But, while his aim can be simply stated, the science required to make it [...]
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BCX launches free maths and science education platform
| Blog
Earlier this month,Tech and infrastructure solutions company, BCX, launched an online free digital learning platform for maths and science teachers and pupils, where technology and education work hand-in-hand to tackle the challenges that currently face basic education system. BCXLearn provides free learning material for pupils from grades four to 12. “BCXLearn.com will revolutionize the way schools approach [...]
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Africa needs to lead on the ‘quantum revolution’
November 21, 2017 | Blog
What role can Africa play in the quantum revolution? Q&A on Africa’s position to lead the quantum tech revolution with Thierry Zomahoun, Founder and Next Einstein Forum Chairman, a platform that helps foster collaboration among young African scientists, in an effort to raise Africa’s scientific profile. In an interview with SciDev.Net during the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists, [...]
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Des bourses de recherche d’une valeur globale de 3 milliards Fcfa pour les femmes scientifiques titulaires d’un doctorat en début de carrière, dans les pays en développement
| Blog
L’Organisation pour les femmes scientifiques dans les pays en développement et au Canada, annonce le lancement d’un nouveau partenariat pour soutenir les femmes dans les sciences en début de carrière dans le Sud, d’une valeur de 3 milliards de FCFA. Le programme vise à donner aux femmes chercheurs de ces pays les moyens de devenir [...]
African Mathematicians advised to it for engagements
| Blog
Professor Louis Aime Fono, a visiting researcher from the University of Doliala, challenges African Mathematicians to solve problems peculiar to the Africa environment, as most of them were said to be inherently mathematical in structure and dynamics. ‘Now the main question is, how can African scholars use mathematics to solve problems of our environment because up [...]
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Francine Ntoumi à l’avant-garde de la recherche en Afrique
| Blog
Francine Ntoumi est une parasitologue congolaise spécialisée dans le paludisme. Elle est la première femme africaine responsable du secrétariat de l’Initiative multilatérale sur le paludisme. Elle dévoile ses efforts dans le domaine de la recherche biomédicale, notamment la création de la Fondation Congolaise pour la Recherche Médicale (FCRM), ainsi que les résultats obtenus et ses [...]
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NEF on Flickr
NEF Community of Scientists Annual Meeting- Day3
