News — computer scientists

Calestous Juma was a Kenyan scientist and university scholar who primarily focused on sustainable development. He served as a Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma also served as the director for the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He was born in Busia village on June 9, 1953 to John Kwada Juma and Clementina Nabwire and grew up in Port Victoria, Kenya. Juma attended Port Victoria Secondary School and later Egoji Teachers’ Training College in Kenya in 1974. After his certification, Juma taught science in Mombasa, Kenya, and wrote for the Daily Nation newspaper. In 1978, he became the first full-time environment and science correspondent for the newspaper.

In 1979, Juma became a researcher and editor for Environment Liaison Centre, an NGO based in Nairobi, Kenya. He then enrolled at the University of Sussex in England with a full scholarship 1982, receiving an MSc in Science, Technology and Industrialization in 1983 and a DPhil in Science and Technology Policy in 1987.

Juma is considered a revolutionary figure in scientific research; he advocated for the use of technology and innovation for development. Juma established Africa’s first science policy think tank African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in 1989. ACTS released a study called “Innovation and Sovereignty,” which helped with the creation of the first industrial property legislation in Kenya. At ACTS, he led a study called Economic Reform and Environment in Africa, which researched the connections between economic innovation, conservation management, and technological transformation in developing nations to further understand how socio-economic environments impact the integration of new technologies. This research was highlighted in some of his first works Long-Run Economics: An Evolutionary Approach to Economic Growth (London: Pinter, 1987) and The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Zed Books, 1989).

Juma moved to Montreal, Quebec Canada in 1995 to serve as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity first executive director. However, he left shortly afterwards because he felt the UN agency placed too many limitations on Africa’s ability to crop genetically modified foods. In 1998, Juma moved to Harvard to continue his work. There he created a UN task force that developed ways in which the developing world can attain Millennium Development Goals through technology and science. In addition, Juma in 2005, served at the US National Academy of Sciences as the Global Challenges and Biotechnology chair, and in 2012 served as co-chair of the African Union High-Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology. One of Juma’s last works, before he passed, was Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Calestous Juma died on December 15, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 54. He is survived by his wife Alison Field-Juma, and his son Eric Juma.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting technologies today, and Africa doesn't want to be left behind.

Today a majority of the AI industry is in North America, Europe and Asia.

Efforts are being made to train computer scientists from African nations, as AI can be used to solve many complex challenges.

In a bid to improve diversity, tech giants are providing investment to develop new talent.

In April, Google opened its first African AI research centre in Ghana.

The AI laboratory, based in Accra, will be used to develop solutions to help improve healthcare, agriculture and education.

Overcoming obstacles

Google's head of AI Accra Moustapha Cisse is from Senegal.

After completing an undergraduate degree in maths and physics in Senegal, he taught himself AI and then went to study in Paris, before joining Facebook.

There are very few AI researchers from Africa, and Mr Cisse has faced great obstacles in achieving his ambitions.

"Despite the support, many of us still have trouble making it to conferences. I have had papers accepted at meetings but been unable to attend because Western countries such as Australia denied me a visa, even though I was already settled and working professionally in Europe," he wrote in his blog.

"We need more efforts to overcome these barriers and to ensure that the benefits of AI arrive globally."

He has long been concerned that AI is a missed opportunity for improving African lives, and that the AI industry is missing out on talent from African nations, because they do not have access to the right education.

Today people often have to travel out of the continent in order to gain the IT skills they need, before returning to Africa to try to build new businesses.

To solve this problem, Mr Cisse has long advocated for better AI education across the continent, and he wants African governments to see AI as a key priority and support efforts to use AI for the good of humanity.

"AI has a lot to offer to Africa and Africa has a lot to offer to AI as well," he told the BBC.

"AI can help accelerate discoveries in various sciences, and it can help in areas where our human expertise is not enough."

Enhancing IT in Africa

One key area Mr Cisse believes AI can be a big help in Africa is in improving healthcare by automating diagnosis of diseases.

He also thinks that using AI to automate translations would make it much easier for African nations to communicate and do business, since there are 2,000 languages being spoken on a daily basis on the continent.

But in order to advance AI developments, Africa needs a robust IT industry.

In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, the African Institute for Mathematical Scientists (AIMS) is running a one-year Masters degree programme in partnership with Facebook and Google to create the next generation of tech leaders.

The degree is the first Masters programme of its kind on the continent.

Talented scientists and innovators drawn from various African countries are being trained in machine learning, a type of AI.

"When we have young Africans working on this topic, we can imagine that they will easily be addressing some global challenges that our continent is facing," AIMS Rwanda president Dr Sam Yala told the BBC.

"When they are trained, some of them will work at universities and it's a way our students can pass their skills on to others."

Via BBC NEWS