Forthcoming events
Forthcoming events
3 - 7 May 2010
Entrepreneurship for physicists and engineers from developing countries
Mirame, Trieste, Italy
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the American Physical Society (APS), the Institute of Physics (IOP) and the AREA Science Park (AREA) will jointly organize the 2010 Workshop "Entrepreneurship for Physicists and Engineers from Developing Countries" to be held at ICTP, Trieste, Italy from 3 to 7 May. This one-week intensive Workshop is designed for physicists and engineers from developing countries who are interested in learning entrepreneurial skills to commercialize their scientific inventions. Such an educational programme is missing in many of the developing countries for scientists working in universities and scientific institutions. The participants will benefit from the international perspective provided in this Workshop from both experts and co-participants from developing countries.
9 - 13 November 2009
Entrepreneurship for Physicists and Engineers from Developing Countries in Africa
Cape Town – South Africa
The first African workshop on Entrepreneurship for Physicists, Scientists and Engineers will be held in South Africa, at iThemba Labs in Cape Town from 9 to 13 November 2009. The main goal of this project is to encourage and impart entrepreneurship skills in scientists and engineers from Africa. This is done so that they are in a position to commercialize or licence their research findings thereby use science and technology to start high-tech enterprises which contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction in Africa.
First announcement (PDF, 40.2KB)
25 - 28 August, 2009
Pan Africa Chemistry Network - Sustainable Water Conference
IOP in collaboration with the RSC is supporting the Pan Africa Chemistry Network's conference on Sustainable Water.
Africa is acutely sensitive to water issues. Several countries have lost as much as 25% of their water resources from their lakes and reservoirs. The state of ground water is poorly mapped and the pattern of rainfall is changing due to climatic change. Above all, Africa has a rapidly growing population that needs water for food production and industrial uses.
August 2009
IOP/RSC Uganda Teachers Training Workshop
An ambitious joint RSC/IOP training event is to take place at Bukinda, Kabale, in SW Uganda from 17-21 August, with cooperation between scientists from Uganda, Rwanda and England! This one week residential event is being coordinated by RSC members Jean Johnson and Pat Johnson (no relation!) on their 10th and 4th visits, respectively, to Uganda. They will be working with Byamugisha Alex, a young teacher from Bukinda who recently spent 3 months at St Dominic’s College, Harrow, funded by a RSC Developing World scholarship.
Thirty school chemistry teachers and 30 physicists from Uganda will participate, with 2 Rwandan chemists attending to explore the relevance for their country. They will all join sessions on good practice in teaching and learning in science and on health and safety and basic first aid in the laboratory. The chemists will then gain experience of simple, inexpensive ways to illustrate the theory sections of the O and A level chemistry syllabus studied in Uganda. Many teachers had little opportunity to do practical chemistry during their teacher training. Copying or dictation of notes on how to do practical work is commonplace. Equipment will include plastic droppers, plastic wallets and Petri dishes to do simple reactions of aqueous ions and both preparations and tests for gases. Small scale techniques to follow reaction rates will also be included, as will practice of titration techniques, needed for practical examinations compulsory even at O level. All teachers will receive a pack of equipment to enable them to carry out the experiments in their own school. They will also gain practice in carrying out simple organic reactions, and use of molecular models to illustrate them. Each school will receive a box of Molymod models. The training is funded by PACN.
The physics course will be taught by physicists from nearby Kigali, capital of Rwanda, and funded by IOP. This is following on from the work of the last years developing and putting in place a workshop to produce apparatus to help Physics teachers do practical work in their classroom. Francis Gatete, the local project manager, is a practicing Physics teacher and runs the training with the teachers. He will be bringing and distributing apparatus made in Kigali to the teachers in Uganda.
The detailed planning will take place at Bukinda, with Kigali physicists visiting to finalise the necessary arrangements. David Richardson, the IOP member who instigated and has overseen the Physics project since 2003, will also be visiting to help ensure the material suits the needs of the teachers in Uganda.
Following this course, the Bukinda team will run a course in Kigali, from 28-30 August, at the request of the Chief Inspector for Education, to help prepare teachers for the first ever chemistry practical examination at a level equivalent to A level.
Ugandan science teachers have little access to IT but the course will give a taster using both physics and chemistry resources. Hopefully, this will encourage teachers to develop their IT skills; a second event can then devote more time to use of the wide variety of material now available to support teaching and learning.
Training Report (PDF, 1.35 MB)
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