The initiative is with permission of the Nobel Foundation, under the NOBEL SYMPOSIA wordmark licenced out to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
While Nobel Symposia have been taking place since 1965, STIAS is the first institution outside of Scandinavia to host a Nobel Symposium. Eight of the Nobel in Africa Symposia will be organized by STIAS over the next 6 years in the categories of Physics, Physiology/Medicine, Chemistry and Economic Sciences.
As part of each Nobel Symposium at STIAS an extended outreach programme to various South African Universities will be organized to bring Symposium participants to those campuses for public talks and engagements. The first Nobel Symposium at STIAS will take place from 24 – 28 October 2022 in the area of Physics (see https://stias.ac.za/initiatives/nobel-in-africa/). The outreach programme for the Physics Symposium is being organized in collaboration with the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS).
The Nobel Symposia will provide a unique opportunity to support and showcase advanced research and scholarship on the African continent, and to promote research excellence and collaborative scholarship in Africa in conversation with the rest of the world. The aim is to provide an international forum to promote the sharing of innovative, highlevel scholarship and to demonstrate the importance of scientific research for the future of the continent and the world.
Nelson Mandela University will host some of the Nobel in Africa Symposia Series outreach activities. We are thrilled that this is coming at the time when our Faculty will be hosting the 7th Biennial African School of Physics (ASP2022) and the African Conference on Physics (ACP2022).
The events will all strengthen the celebrations of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD) as well as the centenary celebrations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). South Africa is one of the thirteen founding members of the IUPAP which has now over 60 country member states. Nelson Mandela University’s Faculty of Science has a special focus on Africa through its strategic intent of lifelong engagement & partnerships with and training & naturing of scholars and intellectual leaders on the continent.
On the 21st of October, Dr Thifhelimbilu Daphney Bucher (CPUT), will give an introductory motivational talk (in person) with the title Rise and take your position leading up to a virtual public lecture presentation by Prof. Neil Turok (University of Edinburgh and Honorary Doctor of Nelson Mandela University) with the title Universe.
The event will take place at the Auditorium, Inkanyezi Building, Summerstrand South Campus, Nelson Mandela University. This outreach event forms part of the Nobel Symposium on Predictability in Science in the Age of AI which will take place at the Wallenberg Research Centre at STIAS from 24-28 October 2022.
Nuclear Physicist Daphney Bucher said that her mother told her: “Education is the husband who will never leave you.” She reiterated this statement during a moving talk about how the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) helped her gain her PhD in Nuclear Physics. This was the same standing ovation talk - about one South African woman’s determination to become educated – that motivated Google to donate $1 million to AIMS. Please come and listen to Daphney as she delivers her motivational talk Rise and take your position.
“Ten, 20 years from now you are going to see young Africans in every field of science doing pioneering work; there is no question about it. They are more motivated than other young people from other continents,” These are the words Prof. Neil Turok, who was recently appointed as the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh, at the Francis Allotey Public Lecture organised by the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Ghana at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in Accra.
In 2003, Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Muizenberg, a postgraduate educational centre supporting the development of mathematics and science across the African continent. Now we look forward to hearing what he has to say on his topic, Universe, for his hybrid public lecture at Nelson Mandela University. For more information on Prof. Neil Turok visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Turok