Those who don't know where the rain began to beat them . . .

My 1965 year group at Achimota Secondary School was probably the first to be assigned Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel, Things Fall Apart as one of the books for the O Level English Literature course. 

On Thursday March 21, 2013 this Nigerian writer who has been called the "founding father of African literature in English" died at age 82. Achebe's works, taken as a whole, focus on the pathologies of Africa. He was a very wise man.

It has been well over 50 years since the publication of Things Fall Apart.  These days, when I arrive in Abuja international airport on my way to teach at the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja (AUST), the car that takes me through downtown to the campus travels on a new freeway being constructed by a German company. The future campus of AUST will be designed by an Italian architectural firm. Just this week, there was an official ceremony where the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana handed over the keys to the new headquarters of Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, designed and constructed by Chinese companies.

You wonder, why after 5 decades of independence, have so many African countries not yet found ways to seriously involve their own scientists and engineers in infrastructural development?

This question reminds me of one of Achebe's proverbs in Things Fall Apart: "Those who do not know where the rain began to beat them cannot say where they dried their bodies."

MOOCs--New Opportunity for Science and Engineering Education in Africa?

Cormier's video What is a MOOC?: http://bit.ly/hikML9

Everyone seems to be talking about MOOCs (pronounced like the sound a cow makes, but ending in "ks," mooks) these days. In the past year the explosion of "MOOCs" (Massive Open Online Courses) promises to profoundly change accessibility to higher education, particularly in science and engineering. Today's blog gives a general overview of this exciting development. The link referenced under the picture goes to a brief YouTube video by Cormier that explains in simple terms how a MOOC works. My next post will  explore some implications of this new model of teaching and learning for African science and technology education.

Background and Timeline

In 2001, in a pioneering move, MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), announced its intention to place all of its courses online (MIT OpenCourseWare) and make them available free of charge to everyone. Within 6 years MIT had completed the publication of virtually the entire curriculum, more than 1,800 courses from some 33 disciplines.

In Fall, 2011, Stanford University experimented with an online course-hosting program that attracted hundreds of thousands of students, allowing them to take courses free of charge. 

In April 2012, the New York Times  reported that 2 computer science professors (Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller) from Stanford University had collected $16 million in venture capital and formed partnerships with four leading universities (Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and the University of Michigan). This venture was called Coursera. In the video referenced below, co-founder Andrew Ng explains how he views the MOOCs as social entrepreneurship and repeatedly explains to a confused Fox newsman why he believes it is important to serve the neediest people--while someone in San Francisco may easily be able to pay $5 (the cost of a latte) for an online course, a poor young person in Kenya may find that same $5 unthinkable.
http://bit.ly/W0SnZ8

At the same time another MOOC company, Udacity, grew out of a free online computer class in artificial intelligence offered at Stanford in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, a Google Fellow and research professor at Stanford. Thrun, along with David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky were cofounders.

In early May 2012, MIT and Harvard University announced they, too, were teaming up to provide  MOOCs, and formed edX. Each partner initially invested $30 million in the venture.  MIT's Provost Rafael Reif insisted that they were designed " 'not to make money' but to improve learning for both the universities and the public at large."  By July 2012, U.C. Berkeley had become a partner with edX. 

By August 2012 Coursera had attracted a million students from 196 countries [the top users were from the US (38%), Brazil (6%), India (5%), and China (4%).]

By September 2012, Coursera had added an additional 17 universities. Coursera now has over 60 university partners and 2.8 million students. In late February 2013 Pennsylvania State University (where I work) announced it was contributing 5 courses.
 

The original idea behind the MOOCs was that in general  students would receive certificates of completion, but not be given university credit. However, that may change in the future as the value of completing MOOC courses evolves.

More on the Inauguration in Arusha

As promised in my previous posting, I have now uploaded several video clips from the  November, 2012 inauguration of the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM AIST)  in Arusha, Tanzania. These clips are also available on the AqueouSolutions You Tube site.
More photos are available on flickr

In the first, the President of Tanzania unveils the busts of presidents Mandela and Nyerere.

The second presents excerpts of the speeches by Dr. Leautier and President Kikwete. It was inspiring to learn why Arusha was selected as the site for the Eastern Africa AIST.

   

The third gives you a taste of some of the lively music and dancing:

NM AIST - Arusha: Kuna Mengi ya Chumba Chini

On November 1, 2012, I had the distinct pleasure of being a part of the inaugural activities of The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, Tanzania, presenting one of  three inaugural public lectures. The first was given by Professor Mramba Nyindo, a specialist in parasitology, entymology, and immunology, and author of 2 books (Animal Diseases due to Protozoa and Rickettsia and Life in Science, From Village to PhD and Back). Prof. Nyindo, a delightful senior academic, spoke on "Trends in Science Education: The role of the Teacher and Student." I spoke on "Plenty of Room at the Bottom: Science, Technology, and Innovation in African Development"  [Kuna Mengi ya Chumba Chini: Sayansi, Teknolojia Na Ubunifu Katika Afrika]. My title was a reference to Richard Feynman's famous 1959 lecture "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics."   Prof. Wole Soboyejo, President of The African University of Science and Technology in Abuja (AUST-Abuja, Nigeria), spoke on challenges and opportunities for science and technology research in Africa.

There were numerous memorable moments at the event: 

• The opportunity to savor the beauty of the surroundings and new buildings 
• The unveiling of busts of Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere with stirring words of wisdom on the plaques below them: "Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farm worker can become the president of a great nation." (Nelson Mandela) and  ". . . intellectuals have a special contribution to make to the development of our nation, and to Africa. And I am asking that their knowledge and the greater understanding that they should possess, should be used for the benefit of the society of which we are all members." (Julius Nyerere)

• The vibrant music and dancing and celebratory feeling among all who attended to see this dream becoming real 
• Listening to the heart-felt words of the President of Tanzania (Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete), the Vice President (Dr. Mohamed Gharib Bilal), the Vice Chancellor of AIST-Arusha
  (Prof. Burton L.M Mwamila) [see picture top right], and Dr. Frannie Leautier, Executive Secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) [see picture below]

 

•  For more photos from the inaugural event, see AIST-ARUSHA 2012 as well as the NM-AIST photo gallery.

In the future I plan to share some video clips I took during the celebration, as well as more observations from the inauguration, but will close today by including the university's current vision of its departments, as shown in the diagram below. While this diagram will likely evolve as the institute grows, I was greatly encouraged and intrigued to note that each of the five clusters surrounding the center circle includes both science and engineering. If this was a deliberate intent to incorporate both science and engineering into each cluster (in contrast to traditional models where each is treated as a separate entity) NM-AIST may well be setting up a model that can lead the way for others.

If you educate a girl, Part IX

When on sabbatical leave at the University of Ghana in 2008 I heard people say that the University of Cape Coast (UCC) had some of the best university science programs in Ghana. I was concerned, therefore, when I realized that among the Ghanaian students admitted to the African University of Science and Technology (AUST-Abuja), in 2008 and 2009, there were no UCC students.

In March 2010, on my way to a meeting at AUST, I decided to stop in Ghana and visit UCC. After contacting the Dean of Physical Sciences via e-mail, he kindly extended an invitation to me. I met with fifteen or so teaching assistants with first degrees in physics and chemistry, and shared with them the AUST vision, but never heard back from any of them. It was therefore a pleasant surprise when in the following July, three students (two females and a male) came up to me in AUST-Abuja, smiling, and introduced themselves as among the students who met with me at UCC.

In December 2011 these three UCC students will graduate with MSc degrees—two of them in Theoretical Physics and another in Materials Science and Engineering. Congratulations to them!

Continuing with my series on the education of females, I asked if the two women, Janet Sackey and Ivy Asuo, would be willing to share a bit about their experiences and what motivated them to pursue careers in science and technology:

If you educate a girl, Part VIII

The African University of Science and Technology (AUST)-Abuja opened its doors to students in 2008. This post-graduate institution offers masters degrees in four fields: mathematics, computer science, materials science and engineering, and petroleum engineering. Among the second batch of students (2009/10) were several women. I posted an interview with one of them previously.

I also spoke with two of the computer science students, Adedoyin Adegoke and Dorothy Maduagwu. They shared some of the challenges they have faced as they seek to pursue their academic goals.

If you educate a girl, Part VI

Yesterday (August 14, 2010) Grace Ofori-Sarpong officially became Dr. Grace Ofori-Sarpong. It was a pleasure to escort my student during the procession for Penn State University's Graduate School Summer Commencement exercise. When I put the hood on her I passed on to her my blessings with a quiet prayer that she would return to the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT, Tarkwa, Ghana) and help transform it from a man's world to a school that truly belongs to both women and men. As the first woman lecturer of this new university with a PhD, Dr. Ofori-Sarpong will no doubt have many opportunities to serve as a role model.

Grace's research on fungi-mediated aqueous processing of refractory (hard-to-treat) gold ores was supervised by Prof. Ming Tien and myself. This work is opening up new doors for biohydrometallurgy research. Dr. Ofori-Sarpong's findings established for the first time that certain fungi release metabolic products that can transform the chemical and physical characteristics of the natural carbon in such gold ores in ways that dramatically inhibit the otherwise undesirable uptake of dissolved gold cyanide complexes.

The challenge now is to find a way to keep her research work active as she returns to Ghana. She must set up an engineering microbiology lab from scratch in an academic environment which does not yet have a serious tradition of externally funded research. Given her track record at Penn State, I have every confidence that if there are research funds available anywhere in the world, she'll find a way to submit successful research proposals. Grace: Ayekoo!

If you educate a girl, Part V

I thought it would be interesting to hear from the women students at AUST a little bit about their backgrounds, their undergraduate education, what attracted them to their academic fields. . . Some of their answers were surprising. In this blog posting and coming ones, I'll feature short conversations I had with 4 of the women during my visit to AUST late last year.

The first video clip features Toyin Iyowu, a first year graduate student in petroleum engineering.

Minerals as Materials, Materials as Minerals, Part 2

In November, 2009 I taught a course in materials processing (MS 603) at AUST, in Abuja, Nigeria. The following assignment was designed to encourage the students to appreciate the minerals-materials linkage, and to go beyond factual information to conceptual understanding and problem-solving:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Process Evaluation and Design Project

From Minerals to Materials: Adding Value to Our Solid Mineral Resources Through Aqueous Processing

Your country’s new Minister of Science and Technology just returned from an African Union Ministerial Forum on Science and Technology where she participated in a panel discussion on using Africa’s natural resource base as a springboard for technological advancement. She was disturbed to learn of the manner in which African governments (including her own) have historically failed to come up with science and technology policies that seriously seek to add value to their countries’ solid mineral resources. She also heard presentations that pushed the idea of “resource curse” as well as those that vehemently challenged this idea. (See, for example, J. D. Sachs and A. M. Warner, “Natural Resources and Economic Development. The Curse of Natural Resources,” European Econ. Rev., 45, 827-838 (2001), G. Wright and J. Czelusta, “Mineral Resources and Economic Development”, 2003.)

Upon her return from the forum, the Minister instructed the Director General (DG) of your country’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to provide her with a comprehensive report on the state of the minerals and materials industry in the country. In connection with this, your boss, the Director of the Center for Materials Research in Aqueous Systems (CMRAS) has asked you to contribute to an initial study to provide management with critical baseline data and assessment. Your work is to focus on aqueous-based chemical processing technologies.

Prepare a report for management in response to this request. Your report should:

(a) Identify two important (and different) solid mineral resources (deposits) in your country that are amenable to aqueous processing - either in the extraction or engineered materials synthesis and processing stages. Indicate the location and extent of these resources. What are the important ore minerals associated with the deposits and what are the valuable metals therein?
(b) What are these metals and minerals used for? What are some commercial products which are based on the metals and/or minerals?
(c) Select one of the deposits. Describe the current nature and level of industrial activity (e.g., is the deposit being mined? Is there any mineral processing? Is there any hydrometallurgical processing? Are there known serious mining/processing environmental problems?)
(d) What are the opportunities you see for adding further value to these resources? What specific contributions do you see for aqueous processing techniques (e.g., in connection with the metal extraction, engineered materials synthesis and processing stages, or environmental aspects).
(e) Select one of the “opportunities” identified in (d) above and describe, as quantitatively as possible, the relevant aqueous processing schemes.
(f) In view of your research findings pertaining to items (a) to (e) above, what is your reaction to the “resource curse” debate?

The technical content of your report should be based on the principles and tools discussed in MS 603. In particular, your report should demonstrate your familiarity with the following process design tools:

(a) Reaction quotients and equilibrium constants
(b) Aqueous stability diagrams
(c) Speciation diagrams
(d) Dissolution, precipitation, and selectivity windows
(e) Reaction paths
(f) Conceptual flow diagrams

The professional-quality report should not be more than 15 pages long (double-spaced) total. Format: Title, Author’s Name and Affiliation, Abstract, Introduction, Other Relevant Headings/Subheadings, Summary and Conclusions, Acknowledgments, References.

At least two-thirds of the report should focus on aqueous processing proper. You should take advantage of relevant information in textbooks, the patent literature, the Internet, technical journals, conference proceedings, company brochures, and personal contacts (e.g., phone calls, e-mails). Be sure to consult more than one type of information source. Your report should clearly indicate some serious thinking on your part.

At a mini-symposium at the end of the course each student will make a 20-minute presentation to report his/her findings. There will be peer review of the presentations. The relevant evaluation forms will be provided. Attire: Business casual.
* * * * * * * * * *
NOTE: Again, this assignment was designed to challenge the students to reflect on and think broadly about their work as scientists and engineers. I wanted them to be aware of and appreciate the wider context and the policy implications of their science and engineering activities. It was also to nudge them towards viewing themselves as active participants in tackling Africa's science and technology challenges.