Congratulations to the first class of admitted students at AIMS Senegal, the newest AIMS center and the latest achievement from cosmologist and TED Prize winner Neil Turok and his NextEinstein Initiative.

In 2008 Turok wished for the TED community to help “unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein.” This proposal is known as the NextEinstein Initiative, Turok’s vision to expand his groundbreaking postgrad program, the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), founded in South Africa in 2003, to a network of 15 centers across Africa. In Turok’s recent talk from Google Zeitgeist, he tells us about his vision for AIMS: “There are plenty of spaces for much more innovative educational centers in the world, and frankly that’s where I think the future will go. It willl go to enterprise. Enterprise should be attached to education and science.”

Since Turok’s 2008 talk AIMS-NEI has made tremendous strides. The second AIMS program launched in Abuja, Nigeria in July 2008, and last month AIMS Senegal welcomed its first class. In the next two years AIMS-NEI anticipates the addition of two new centers in Ghana and Ethiopia. By 2013 all five centers will be fully operating, and the world will be on its way to meeting its first African Einstein.

This week Nature released an Africa special supplement. Featured in the issue is a long article by TED Prize winner Neil Turok on the African Institue for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and the Next Einstein Initiative.

From the article…

This September, AIMS will open an institute near an ecological reserve just south of Dakar in Senegal. Next year, it plans to open one in Ghana. The governments of Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania have also expressed strong interest. Developing a sustainable funding plan is our main challenge. We need to convince national governments that an AIMS centre will be a jewel in their educational system. After four years, AIMS in Cape Town became recognized as a national asset, with a line item in the education budget. We must do the same for every new centre.

Meanwhile, we are finding support from many sources. Last year, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed Can$20 million (US$20 million) towards AIMS centres in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia or Tanzania over the next five years. The Next Einstein Initiative also won a Google Project 10¹⁰⁰ award of US$2 million towards construction costs for the centres. And Google gave US$1 million dollars for scholarships. The government of Senegal committed 656 million francs (US$1.4 million) in cash and land towards AIMS–Senegal. In Ghana, 7 hectares of land was donated by a diaspora organization, and the president committed 2.7 million cedi (US$1.5 million) towards construction of AIMS–Ghana.

A full scholarship at AIMS costs just US$10,000 a year, one-fifth of the cost of educating a graduate student in Europe or North America. This simple calculation underlies our One for Many programme. The idea is that a university in the developed world contributes the cost of one graduate fellowship on their campus to support many students studying at an AIMS centre. This is an excellent way for the university to engage with Africa at a manageable cost. Its faculty can visit to teach, and it recruits AIMS alumni to its PhD programmes. Just ten institutions are needed to support the entire scholarship costs of a new AIMS centre. So far, five Canadian universities and one French university have joined, and many more have expressed an interest.

Launching 15 AIMS centres will cost US$120 million over the next ten years. We think this is a bargain — just 0.03% of the projected international aid to Africa over that period. But convincing donors to support advanced education is hard. To them I say, “Who will teach the next generation of teachers?” And “How will Africa ever develop without a technical base?” Without such investments, the long-term prospects for the continent are meagre. When compared with India and China (each of which has half a million science and technology graduates a year), 750 skilled graduates is the bare minimum Africa needs.

The idea for the Next Einstein Initiative came from AIMS students. In 2007, I was lecturing at the Institute on how Einstein described the whole cosmos with an equation. I said, as an aside, “Of course, we hope there will be an Einstein among you.” I explained how Einstein too came from a disadvantaged group, the Jews, and, with his peers, revolutionized physics. Next day, Esra was giving a talk to a prospective donor. She ended by saying: “We want the next Einstein to be an African.”

On the 5th anniversary of TEDTalks, the TED blog asked speakers “How did your TEDTalk impact you?”

Here is the answer from 2008 TED Prize winner Neil Turok:

The talk I gave at TED2008 was simply transformative. I spoke about the importance of mathematical skills in modern society and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). I expressed the wish that the next Einstein be African.

The talk gave huge and immediate visibility to our then-small AIMS project, which was struggling from one funding crisis to the next. When I proposed a plan to create 15 AIMS centres all over Africa, this generated enthusiasm and, ultimately, funding.

And our alumni, many of whom saw the talk online, were inspired by the thought that an organisation like TED, representing the most forward-looking thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs in the world, cared about them.

Reblogged with permission from the Next Einstein Initiative's new blog...

Where do we come from? How far can we go?

While there is a definite answer to the first question there is no limit to the second. You could formulate it mathematically. It starts here and goes to infinity. But there is more to life than mathematics. And at AIMS, there is more to mathematics than textbooks and tough problem. There is life.

As we are about to celebrate the graduation of the 2010-2011 AIMS class, we are humbled by their stories. This year, around 55 students from all over Africa, from mountains and plains, from coasts and deserts, have come together at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and embarked on a journey that delivered more than anyone could have anticipated.

As the AIMS academic year begins, challenges seem insurmountable. There is language, there is computer programming, there is living with lots of strangers from different cultures and there usually is at least a few thousand kilometres to home.

As the year progresses, every challenge is faced and surmounted – together with fellow students, with the support of tutors, and with the wise guidance of lecturers who are deeply invested in making every student succeed.

The students are not the only ones learning from the experience. It would change anyone’s life to see such talent unfold and blossom. The lecturers are humbled by the opportunity to bring something to students so significant that it is tangible. The students suddenly believe in their capacity to excel, and everyone grows close, as a year of study becomes a year in a new family.

It is not a new story. Every year since 2003 this miracle has happened, over and over again. The students all have a story, they all come from somewhere. But how far they can go remains to be discovered, as they are all about to begin a new life as talented scientists, with a new family and new skills. And perhaps the most important of all; they know they can break new ground, in Africa and for Africa, and that’s a great place to be.

So as we are proudly about to graduate a new generation of brilliant minds, we wish them to succeed in their future endeavours, to reach new heights, to create new paths and to define new futures, as others have done before them, and as many will do in their footsteps.

Congratulations to all on your growth and your hard work and we look forward to seeing you come back one day and tell us your unfinished success story of African science.

Congratulations to AIMS and 2008 TED Prize winner Neil Turok on winning one of five $2 million prizes from Google’s Project 10^100.  Project 10^100 (10 to the 100th) was a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible, with $10 million dollars in total prize money to support organizations executing on those ideas. AIMS’ piece of the prize will be used to expand its network of science and math academies that promote graduate-level study in Africa.

Over 150,000 ideas were submitted to Project 10^100 which were narrowed it to 16 ideas and then were voted upon to get down to the final five ideas. Over the past 12 months, Google reviewed concrete proposals to tackle those ideas which resulted in the five winners.

Other winners include the wonderful Khan Academy, a network of educational video; the FIRSTrobotics challenge (led by TEDTalks star Dean Kamen); Public.Resource.org, which works to make governmnt transparent; and the Schweeb monorail concept.

In 2008, Neil Turok wished to unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein. The TED Community rallied around Neil’s plan to create a network of 15 centers to develop the bright scientific minds of Africa by 2020.  Based upon the success of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Cape Town, founded by Neil Turok, the Next Einstein Initiative was launched to develop this network.

Today, the Canadian government made a significant commitment to the initiative with an investment of $20 million CDN to support the establishment of a network of five AIMS centers across Africa by 2015.

In a special announcement at the Perimeter Institute, where Neil Turok is Director, Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper announced the new federal funding as a central element of a partnership between Universities, the private sector and African governments focused on establishing the AIMS network, including new centres in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Senegal.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper commended AIMS’ revolutionary approach and said, “History shows that our world becomes safer, healthier and more stable through advances made in science and technology. Humanity’s ascent from ignorance and barbarism to enlightenment and equality has been a fitful and uneven process. If there is, however, a universal constant in human affairs, it is that the expansion of knowledge and technology has continuously made life better for more people. That’s why our government is supporting scientific and technological research, as well as development at home and abroad.”

Also in attendance was Dr. Stephen Hawking, who visited AIMS for a special Next Einstein kickoff event two years ago. He remarked, “I was lucky to visit AIMS in South Africa, in 2008, to enjoy the remarkable atmosphere, filled with the students enthusiasm for math, science and the future of Africa. Science is a powerful unifier of people from all countries and cultures. Connecting Africans to each other and to the world through science is, I believe, one of the best investments one can make in Africa’s future.”

In response to the announcement, TED Curator Chris Anderson said “We’re absolutely delighted at this news. Neil Turok’s visionary TED Prize wish that the next Einstein come from Africa is being given the best possible chance to come true. This is a giant step forward for the project and thrilling news for everyone who’s helped make it real.”

Read more in the press release.

Interested in supporting the Next Einstein Initiative? Learn more here.

This month the Canadian magazine The Walrus is running a profile on Neil Turok.  Focused on his work as Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and his search for the next Einstein, the piece offers a unique view into the life and passions of the 2008 TED Prize Winner.

…at fifty, [Turok's] focus is as much on finding the next Einstein as on becoming that person. Next Einstein is actually the name of an initiative Turok launched last spring to raise money for the creation of aims centres across Africa — a choice of words he hesitated over. “In theoretical physics,” he says, “you don’t take Einstein lightly. You don’t use his name in vain.” Perimeter will inaugurate a similar program this fall, and though it will have a different name it will be structured much like the aims program: as an intensive ten-month course combining lectures from prominent experts with brief research stints… “I want PI to serve as a heart for circulating brains, pumping brains around the world,” he says. It is this large-scale opportunity, more than any particular research agenda, that lured Turok, against his initial instincts and despite the advice of mentors such as Gross, to Perimeter.

Be sure to check out all of Alex Hutchinson’s piece, available online.

In early 2010 the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) founding Director Prof. Fritz Hahne is due to retire.  AIMS is currently soliciting curriculam vitae to fill the position.  The appointment will be on a five-year contract basis.  The closing date for applications is April 30, 2009.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensuring the proper functioning of the academic programmes, including selection of students, the structure of the curriculum, and the selection of courses and lecturers
• the full strategic and operational functioning and growth of the AIMS Institute in Muizenberg
• developing, renewing and achieving the goals of the AIMS project as it expands, in partnership with the AIMS Council

Requirements include:

• A doctorate in Mathematics or a related discipline
• a strong research and teaching profile
• extensive experience in the management of advanced teaching programmes and research
• an international research reputation and connection

Learn more here.

Today’s Guardian features an article on AIMS and the Next Einstein Initiative. The student profiles are the highlight.

The year Marie Chantal Cyulinyana was 12 she didn’t go to school. The 1994 genocide that cost her country, Rwanda, a million lives also put her education on hold.

She was lucky – she went back to school the following year. Many of her contemporaries never did…

Olubode Adetunji – called Bode for short – faced a different challenge growing up in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city. In Africa’s most populous country, where there are 100 universities but few good jobs, only the best succeed.

Thousands of miles separated Cyulinyana and Adetunji as they grew up. But their fates were to be joined…they both heard about an institute in South Africa where promising young scholars from all over the continent could develop their skills.