“I have never seen so much enthusiasm,” says Sinead Griffin, referring to the African School on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications (ASESMA), where she participated as a mentor. “There were hands flying up all the time to get help. No one wanted to leave the computer room in the evenings.” Some 40 students and early-career lecturers from eight African countries attended the two-week boot camp last July near Cape Town, South Africa. One of them was Naphtaly Moro of Kenya, who says ASESMA was “an eye-opener to me, for it exposed me to research and experts. The experience is unforgettable to say the least.”
The biennial school, which launched last year, and its host, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), are different approaches with a common goal: Both are part of a small but growing trend to increase the number of educated people in Africa and the level...