AIMS South Africa welcomes new intake

Inside this issue:

New intake

1

ARETÉ Junior Research Chair

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AIMS Rwanda opens

1

Science Communication Workshop

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Research Centre updates

2

Seminar by Prof. Neil Turok

2

DST interns visit 3 AIMS South Africa National Science Week launch

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AIMS South Africa has welcomed its August 2016 intake of 51 students (20 women) from 17 countries. The students are now one week into the programme and are busy with the following skills courses: English and Communication Skills (Noluvuyo Hobana, AIMS) and Computing and LaTeX (Jan Groenewald, AIMS). The January 2016 intake have returned from their break and are busy working on the research projects.

The AIMS ARETÉ Junior Research Chair programme facilitates the return of another talented mathematical scientist to Africa AIMS is pleased to host a second young talented African scientist, Dr Yabebal Fantaye, in its Research Centre in South Africa under the AIMS ARETÉ Junior Research Chair program. This program is a strategic research initiatives resulting from a collaboration between AIMS and the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany).

NRF Regional PhD 4 conference UWC Women in Mathematics

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AIMSSEC MT26

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AIMMSEC presents research at conferences

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GWI conference

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Alumni news

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Announcements

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AIMS South Africa also welcomed 8 new tutors: Georg Aneg (Austria), Alberto Cazzaniga (Italy), Maye Yassin Ahmed Elmardi (Sudan), Eyaya Birara

Eneyew (Ethiopia), Yae Gaba (Benin), Nirina Maurice Hasina Tahiridimbisoa (Madagascar), Myriam Mahaman (Madagascar) and Carine Umulisa (Rwanda).

New AIMS Centre opens in Rwanda AIMS Rwanda, the 6th centre in the AIMS Network opened its centre on 29 August 2016 and starts with 44 students (including 17 women) from 10 African countries.

Continued on page 2.

Science Communication and Engagement Workshop - # SciComm@AIMS This workshop sponsored by the by the British Council Newton Fund and Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World through the Academy of Science South Africa and hosted by AIMS South Africa on 26 August. Continued on page 3

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Research Centre updates th

Cosmology Seminars

66 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Mr Mootoovaloo (2nd left) on the panel discussion.

Mr Arrykrishna Mootoovaloo, currently finishing his Master’s in the Cosmology Group at AIMS South Africa, recently attended the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting which was held from 26 June to 1 July 2016. The theme for this meeting was dedicated to Physics and it gathered around 400 young scientists to discuss informally with 30 Nobel Laureates. Arrykrishna participated in several events such as the Africa Outreach Breakfast, Excellence in Science and Sports and Challenges and Opportunities in Big Data. He was honoured to be a member of the panel convened for a

press conference on Artificial Intelligence and Research alongside Vincent Cerf, who received the prestigious Turing award in 2004. During the press talk, Arrykrishna emphasised how we will need advanced Machine Learning tools in the era of big data. Arrykrishna is presently working on Bayesian Inference with Prof. Bruce Bassett. The following alumni also attended the meeting Ms Oladele Temitope Mary (AIMS Sénégal), Mr Brice Dzokou Takamte (AIMS Cameroon) and Mr Sidiki Zongo (AIMS South Africa).

The Cosmology Group hosted two seminars, the first by Dr Inger Fabris-Rotelli (University of Pretoria), who led an informal workshop titled: ‘An overview of the LULU operators and the DPT in one and more dimensions’ on 22 August and the second by James Newling (ETH) titled: ‘Nested Mini-Batch K-Means’ based on the paper http:// arxiv.org/abs/1602.02934 on 29 August.

Dr Fabris-Rotelli

Visiting researcher AIMS welcomes Dr Rafal Lochowski to the AIMS Research Centre. Dr Lochowski is an AIMS Associate Research fellow and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Economics at the Warsaw School of Economics. He will be at AIMS until 14 September 2016.

Postdoc attend workshop at AIMS Ghana

AIMS ARETÉ Junior Research Chair cont... Its goal is to build a community of motivated and talented scientists who will undertake international-class scientific work on the African continent. The program achieves this by providing a 5-year grant to talented African mathematical scientists who have returned, or wish to return to the continent. The program supports their integration in the academic and research environment in Africa. Dr Fantaye sees the AIMS ARETÉ Research Chair position as an ambitious, unique, forward-looking, and generous position which he says he is delighted to hold. He further highlights that “with Africa hosting world-leading initiatives like the Square Kilometer

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Array (SKA), Africa is positively transforming itself in all dimensions.” Dr Fantaye has a background in Cosmology, Big Data and Machine Learning and has indicated that what excites him about the AIMS ARETÉ Research Chair position is the opportunity to work in organisations like AIMS and in close collaboration with institutions in his home country Ethiopia, while building and fostering global research collaborations: “This provides a unique platform for me to be part of Africa’s transformation and an opportunity to make a real difference through research within the mathematical sciences.” To view the full article please click here

Participants at the workshop

Dr Andre Saint Eudes Mialebama Bouesso, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Centre attended the School and Workshop in Homological methods in Algebra and Geometry hosted by AIMS Ghana and done in collaboration with the The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) from 1 to 12 August

2016. The goals of the workshop were to inspire the communication of state-of-the-art research within these flourishing areas and the exchange of ideas between them. As well as give African postgraduates and researchers the opportunity to get in touch with international experts in order to help them enter one of these fields.

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Seminar by Prof. Neil Turok

On 24 August, Prof. Neil Turok, the Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and founder of AIMS, gave a

seminar titled “Science and our future.” A video of the talk can be viewed at https:// youtu.be/qBmWMGRGbyE

DST interns visit AIMS South Africa

Prof. Green welcomes the delegation.

On 19 August, 20 DST interns, led by Ms Palesa Motsoeneng, Assistant Director: Multilateral Cooperation and Africa, visited AIMS South Africa to learn about the opportunities and successes of AIMS. Prof Barry Green, Director welcomed the group. They were given presentations on AIMS South Africa, AIMSSEC and the AIMS Network. AIMS alumnus, David Attipoe, and current AIMS student Zuko Matthews also presented talks. Ms Motsoeneng said, “We gained a lot of insight into the role that AIMS plays in Africa’s

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education system, specifically in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The AIMS Women in Stem Initiative (AIMSWIS) is crucial and beneficial to Africa's innovative capacity and global competitiveness, since social and economic inclusion of women plays a huge role in economic growth. What was also notable was the pan-African approach in the work that AIMS does. Additionally, we would like to commend you on the gradual expansion of the centres of excellence and wish you the best of success in your latest centre of excellence due to be opened in Kigali, Rwanda.”

Science Communication & Engagement workshop cont...

Participants at the workshop

It was aimed at equipping the 50 participants, who were made up of 25% researchers, 35% PhD and 40% Master’s students, with communication and engagement skills allowing them to communicate with different stakeholders at all stages of research. Participants were introduced to the concepts of science communication by Ms Thakane Ntholi, a science communicator and a scientist at the Council for Geoscience. An interactive introduction to the role of young researchers in public communication of science – focusing on the “why” and “how” of getting started was presented by Ms Marina Joubert a science communication researcher at CREST (Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology), Stellenbosch University. Ms Savannah Nuwagaba (AIMS alumnus and PhD student) presented ‘Personal impact and emotional intelligence.’; and Yasmin Hankel (AIMS New Media Specialist) and Noluvuyo Hobana (AIMS Communications Lecturer) co-hosted a session on ‘Networking skills, branding and social media.’ The workshop ended with informative session on “Policy briefing and press releases” by Rebecca Helmana researcher at the University of South Africa’s Institute for Social and Health Sciences and the South African

Medical Research Council UNISA’s Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit and Ephifania Geza a PhD student in Bioinformatics in the AIMS Research Centre and the University of Cape Town, who attended the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) workshop in March and initiated this workshop at AIMS. The programme also included a great talk on "Rules of giving a talk" by Prof Neil Turok the Director of the Perimeter Institute in Canada and founder of AIMS. Participants were also given tips on ‘What makes a great public talk and the skills that a scientist requires when outside of academia’ by Prof Bruce Bassett, Head of the Cosmology Group at AIMS South Africa. “Participants came from all over South Africa with one from as far afield as the University of California and had very diverse research backgrounds. This made the workshop an excellent opportunity and platform for collaboration and networking with peers. As we are celebrating women's month we were thrilled to see that 46% of participants were women,” said Dr Gavhi-Molefe, one of the workshop organisers. Ms Anisa Khan from the British Council Newton fund also attended.

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National Science Week Launch AIMS South Africa and AIMSSEC hosted an exhibition at the launch of National Science Week (NSW) which was held on 5 and 6 August 2016. The exhibition was attended by 1625 scholars from 65 schools and 1000 members of the general public. Postdoc Dr Franck Kalala Mutombo, AIMS Research Centre students, Ms Dinna Ranirina and Ms Fatumah Atuhaire. attended on behalf of AIMS South Africa, with Mr Dakalo Ramufhi, Ms Lindiwe Tshuma and Ms Loveness Mahwire on behalf of AIMSSEC. NSW is an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and a country-wide celebration of science involving various stakeholders and/or role players conducting science-based activities during the week. The aim is to showcase local innovations in science and technology, make these areas of study appealing to learners, so that they consider Science, Engineering and Technology as preferable career options, and, to make science popular to the broader South African Society Dr Kalala Mutombo said, “As a postdoctoral fellow, volunteering at this event was a great opportunity for me to interact with young talented and motivated learners who are interested and want to study mathematics in their future. During the exhibition, learners were really passionate about mathematics and I was impressed by how fast they were able to solve math-

NRF PhD Project Regional Conference The National Research Foundation (NRF) hosted a SA PhD Regional Conference focusing on Higher Education Institutions in KwaZulu-Natal on 17 August. Two postdoctoral fellows in the AIMS South Africa Research Centre attended the event: Dr Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe as speaker and Dr Franck Kalala Mutombo who hosted the AIMS South Africa exhibition table.

Dr Kalala Mutombo discusses maths with a scholar

ematics activities and puzzles. What was very interesting was one learner was very determined and did not want to leave our stand before solving the activity. I believe these learners are the pioneers of the next generation for this country in math and AIMS and AIMSSEC can play an important role among others organisations and institutions. It was also a great opportunity to tell people more what AIMS is about, its mission, and where it is located.” Ms Dinna Ranirina noted, “I think that NSW is a great occasion for students to see with their own eyes that science is a powerful tool for the development of Africa and it has so many different aspects that everyone can be a part of it. At the exhibition we could talk to scholars about other kinds of maths that they do not learn at school and we could encourage the girls to be more involved in science especially as AIMS strongly encourages gender equality in science.”

The South African PhD Project aims to significantly increase the number and diversity of South Africans with research doctorate degrees. The audience included about 300 current and potential PhD students, mentors, representatives from funding agencies, higher education institutions

offering doctoral training programmes, public and private research institutions and government departments. Dr Kalala Mutombo noted, “Exhibiting at this event as a postdoc was a great opportunity to promote the AIMS Research Centre, to highlight the different fields of research and the opportunities available for Ph.D. and Master’s students.” Dr Gavhi-Molefe was asked to speak on ‘Understanding your discipline – STEM’. This included what to expect during a PhD in STEM disciplines, what skills are needed and acquired, good practices, and getting ready for the road ahead.

UWC Women in Mathematics On 24 August 2016, UWC Science Learning Centre for Africa hosted their annual Women in Science MiniConvention which was held as part of the University’s celebration of women in the month of August. Dr Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe was one of five successful female role model speakers who addressed 125 girls from disadvantaged schools across the broader Cape Flats on the role that mathematics plays in their lives. Dr Gavhi-Molefe said, “It was a great experience attending this event as one of the role models where I met amazing, phenomenal, intelligent women scientists from chemistry,

business consulting, mechanical rngineering, viticulture and oenology; maths and science teachers; and the next generation of female scientists.” The event was very well organised and feedback from learners included this statement from a Grade 11 learner: “This session was excellent, now I know I can get far in life with mathematics. 100% is possible if you practice every day and make sure you understand everything. Ask people who understand better to help you. Never let the circumstances you live under influence your future. I have learned that with mathematics you can become whoever you want to be and even travel around the world.”

AIMSSEC’s 26th Mathematical Thinking (MT26) Course

MT26 particpants

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134 teachers from 5 provinces attended the course from 4 to 14 July 2016 in Stellenbosch. This brings the total number of teachers trained over 13 years to 1,707 (an average of 131 teachers per year, or 65 teachers per school holiday).

Three AIMSSEC alumni lectured on the MT26 course and six AIMSSEC Alumni and four AIMS Master’s students, Oluwatosin Babasola, Mebawondu Akindele, Arzaq Ibrahim and Kolawole Oluwakemi helped as teaching assistants.

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AIMSSEC presents research at conferences AIMSSEC presents research at the International Congress for Mathematics Education (ICME) Dr Marie Joubert, Ms Ingrid Mostert and Ms Lindiwe Tshuma presented their research at a number of conferences in the last year. These conferences included: the Southern African Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Conference (SAARMSTE) held in Pretoria in January 2016; the Association of Mathematics Education in South Africa (AMESA) conference held in Nelspruit in July 2016; the Classroom Teaching Research for all Students (CTRAS) held in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2016; and the International Congress for Mathematics Education (ICME) also held in Hamburg, Germany, from 24-31 July 2016. At ICME, Dr Marie Joubert was part of a high profile invited team who presented a survey of the literature related to

Ms Tshuma at ICME

mathematics’ teachers learning through collaboration. She also took part in the topic study group on task design in mathematics classrooms, where she presented a paper on some of the research she and Ingrid Mostert have done since July 2014 for the EU-funded FaSMEd project. She spoke about the design decisions the research team and the teachers involved in the research had made in implementing a range of predesigned lessons in the teachers’ classrooms.

Graduate Women International Conference held for the first time on the African continent

Ms Kenny and Mr Chapwanya

Mr MacDonald Chapwanya and Ms Sinobia Kenny represented AIMSSEC at a panel discussion at the Graduate Women International Conference held on 25 August 2016 at the CTICC in Cape Town. Ms Kenny gave a presentation about AIMSSEC in the South African educational context which lead on to Mr Chapwanya’s presentation about how AIMSSEC is using a problem solving approach when using new technologies for STEM education.

Alumni News Ms Xolisile Thusini, who graduated from AIMS South Africa in 2014, has won the Tata Africa Master’s Scholarship at the Women in Science Awards held on 11 August 2016 in Johannesburg. Ms Thusini originally from Nquthu in KwaZulu-Natal is currently doing her Research Master’s with Dr Andrew Hamilton at the University of Cape Town in particle physics and her research focuses on the discovery of the Higgs Boson and its properties. She will be using the prize money to fund her travels abroad to do the experiments required for her thesis.

there I met people who had certainly not studied in English but French and Arabic instead. Everyone there was willing to learn, so I was really enthused and motivated.”

Of her experience at AIMS she notes, “I was a bit tense about my English, but when I got

Please click here to view the full article http:// www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?

Ms Thusini

Announcements The Mathematics in Industry Study Group in South Africa will take place at AIMS South Africa 11 -14 January 2017: Graduate Workshop 16 - 20 January 2017: MISG 23 - 27 January 2017: Project write-up A Mathematics in Industry Study Group is a five-day workshop at which academic researchers and graduate students work collaboratively with representatives from industry on research problems submitted by local industry. Study Groups have been organized for over forty years in many countries around the world. The first Study Group in South Africa was held in 2004. Contact information David P Mason; E-mail: [email protected] For more information please visit: https://www.aims.ac.za/en/ research-centre/workshops-conferences/currentfuture/ mathematics-in-industry-study-group-misgsa-2017

AIMS in the News Africa’s Nursery for Einsteins This article written by Rowan Philip for Undark Magazine is about AIMS' work and ambition of finding the next Einstein in Africa.

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Please visit http://undark.org/ article/can-ambitious-initiativefind-african-einstein-aims/

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