Interview Jan Groenewald
From AIMSWiki
Jan Groenewald (South Africa), Computer Officer at AIMS
Q: How did you get involved in AIMS?
Peer pressure, I confess. Several friends told me to apply. And since my background is in computer science and mathematics, it was a natural fit. This was four years ago, when the Institute first opened. A major incentive for me was the potential to spread Free Software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) for science in Africa.
I don't think I knew quite how successful it would be.
Q: So, you have actually helped shape and build it?
Yes, that's right. I came here to look at the building during the renovation and I got to know where it was, where I would work. Renovation was significant and even some of the first students helped finish preparations for that year. Computers and books arrived along with students.
Q: Who had the idea to found AIMS?
The founder is Neil Turok, a South African, working as a cosmologist in Cambridge. His father is a member of parliament in South Africa and lives here in Muizenberg. That explains his family's interest in Muizenberg. We offer a nine-month post-graduate diploma in the mathematical sciences. The basic idea is to prepare good students who are perhaps lacking some broader skills and experience for a research MSc. They are also taught some practical skills for modelling. Overall, they turn out to perform very well in their Masters and PhDs after an AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) PGD.
Q: How did AIMS get involved in Africa@home?
The director of AIMS, Fritz Hahne brought Ben Segal to AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) after a meeting at SACEMA (http://www.sacema.ac.za) in Stellenbosch. SACEMA (http://www.sacema.aims.ac.za) is a key partner of AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za). Fritz passed the concept on to me and I was interested in the technical and community aspects of Africa@home (http://africa-at-home.web.cern.ch/). It is a unique blend of mathematical and computing concepts and resonates with Free Software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html). Fritz gives me the freedom to pursue more ICT related projects at AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za), so Ben and I pursued the possibility of hosting this workshop at AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za). In fact it almost didn't happen as several other more mathematically oriented workshops were crowding our schedule. I'm glad it did, it is a dynamic group of people with a grand vision.
Q: Tell me more about AIMS and what kind of potential do you see for AIMS's involvement in the project?
Now that the success of AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) has been demonstrated, we are working on the institute's duplication elsewhere in Africa, in a total of 15 African countries, in the spirit of a strong collaborative network called AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml). Distributed computing makes sense in this kind of environment. We will probably see an explosion in Africa of science and technology. Relevant applications being developed would be good.
One of the challenges for us is that we have to go around the continent and you cannot judge easily the quality of specific institutions. Nigeria in particular, which is huge and has so many different universities. It is still early for us in the process. So it is too early to predict what kinds of complications we may run in to, corruption, problems of expertise, politics, etc. It is probably too much to expect that all 15 institutes will succeed right away. Some of them might face delays. Others may be an immediate great success. In Madagascar, there are currently 80 mathematics postgraduates at the University of Antananarivo (http://www.univ-antananarivo.mg), and that is not counting other science departments. The department simply does not have the capacity to supervise them. There are not enough resources to manage them. We hope that with an institute there, we will be able to increase local activity and remote supervisors who will be able to visit periodically and help interaction between the researchers themselves. What is key is the interaction between senior and younger lecturers and developing modern computing skills in modelling. Free Software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) offers a unique opportunity here, and is a necessity for African science. We use the popular platform Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntulinux.org) for all our staff and students, and hope to see similar platforms across AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml).
As you know, the single biggest cost for the kind of seminar we are organizing this week are air fares, which means that only about half of the aid money is at the end of the day being used for the actual content. A more distributed regional network will allow research groups to reach critical mass, and return on investment may come sooner. I hope that the first institute will be approved by January 2008, and within 5 years we could manage to get 15 institutes operational. A few months of intense activity for each should be fine. If one has the funding, teaching can start even while the building is still under construction. We hope the AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) network of lecturers, researchers, and alumni will be inspired by the pan-African spirit fostered here to become partners at their local nodes of AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml).
NEPAD (http://www.nepad.org) (New Partnership for Africa's Development) will help to find the funding for AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml). We are initially counting on international donors, but also hope that African science Ministers will convince their governments to contribute substantially. AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) started off with international funders, but such funding tapers off later because they (naturally) want projects and institutions to find their own financial basis and sustainability. I think currently at AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) the two most important donors are the South African Departments of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za) and of Education (http://www.education.gov.za). This is a good situation, as it is absolutely necessary to have the local governments on board to ensure continuity, without which an institution is unlikely to operate for any substantial period of time. African scientists must become policy advisors to their governments if we want to realise the much talked about African Renaissance.
Q: How is AMI-Net structured?
We have a board and it has a council of 10 African scientists plus Neil Turok, the founder of AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za), and two international representatives. AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) is the model for the institutes, but it must will be a collaborative multi-lingual, multi-cultural network, not one run by AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za). Although relevance to Africa is the first focus, AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml) should become an international contributor to science in general. I serve on the secretariat with Neil Turok, Fritz Hahne, Edward Lungu from Zambia, and Emmanuel Tonye of Cameroon. We are visiting potential sites for AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml) nodes to assess and assist in the development of business plans.
Q: So you have achieved a lot already but also have a set of challenges at hand, right? What about the brain drain?
Nowadays people are calling it brain circulation, as the diaspora is a great resource and some of those who have left are coming back to collaborate. Education in South Africa costs only one fifth of what it does in Europe. There are some good examples of opportunities for trained academics everywhere in Africa as well. I am thinking of an amazing example in Benin called IMSP (http://www.imsp-uac.org) (Institut de Mathématique Science et Physique) that produces many excellent Ph.D students, with very limited resources, and the potential that such an institute has with modern resources and good governance. The University of Khartoum (http://www.uofk.edu) in Sudan has fantastic relevant research and expanding resources, but is still very isolated both in Africa and internationally, and is a politically sensitive place to try to work. Antananarivo (http://www.univ-antananarivo.mg), Cape Coast (http://www.ucc.edu.gh) and other universities in Ghana, as well as Makerere (http://www.mak.ac.ug) in Uganda, are universities we have visited recently that have excellent human potential, but the lack of infrastructure is at the same time an obstacle. Yet they offer economical opportunities of leap-frogging from the current situation to being cost-effective centres of excellence in African Science, both in teaching and research. We challenge ourselves to be always Relevant, Innovative, Cost-effective, while maintaining the Highest quality: what Neil calls our "RICH" principles.
Q: Where do students go once educated?
There is a great shortage of qualified professors and lecturers for academia. We find that many of our students are in fact going into academia. We also would hope that many start up innovative businesses or work on research problems that are related to African challenges and needs. For instance, in the case of health we are specifically looking at disease modelling for AIDS/HIV, TB, Malaria, etc. It is not immediately easy for everyone. One of our best students is struggling to find a post upon returning to Tanzania. I wonder if her expertise isn't simply overwhelming. AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml) can help to create more opportunities and collaborations which can lead to even more. AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) students have a strong desire to communicate with international scientists and we want to see this spirit spread to other regions rather than be concentrated in South Africa alone.
Q: What do you expect from the Africa@home course for yourself and the Institute?
I am between an organizer and a participant in this course and want to learn something. I believe that I will be able to spread it after the course both at AIMS (http://www.aims.ac.za) and in AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml). The concept of volunteering is great in Africa@home (http://africa-at-home.web.cern.ch/). It's all about doing that little bit of extra for the project to make it something special. Africa@home (http://africa-at-home.web.cern.ch/) is a good example of an international project that involves computer resources even here in Africa, where such resources are scarce, but there is a feeling of empowerment. The ultimate goal is also to contribute internationally. I hope that I will be adding 100 PCs here after the workshop, and I would be inclined to put those on disease modelling and environmental problems. Perhaps soon we can see about running volunteer computing servers across AMI-Net (http://www.nepadst.org/platforms/aminet.shtml) for scientists to develop their applications for this platform.
--Viola Krebs, ICVolunteers, 07:35, 17 Jul 2007 (SAST)
