Summary
Will Einstein’s successors be African? It’s very likely - and some of them will be women.
Back in 2008 South African physicist Neil Turok gave a speech in which he declared his wish that the next Einstein would be from Africa. It was a rallying call for investment in maths and physics research in Africa. The ‘Next Einstein’ slogan became a mission for the organisation Neil Turok had founded to bring Africa into the global scientific community - through investment in maths and physics, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. That search for an African Einstein now has some results, with 15 ‘Next Einstein fellows’ and 54 ‘Next Einstein Ambassadors’. These are young African scientists, often leaders in their fields, working and studying in Africa. This programme visits the first ‘Next Einstein Forum’ – a meeting held in March 2016 in Senegal which celebrated the Next Einstein Fellows and also make the case for greater investment in scientific research in Africa.
(Image: Rwandan President Paul Kagame answers a question during the NEF Global Gathering 2016 Presidential Panel, credit: NEF/Clément Tardif)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, |
| 0:07.0 | go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. broadcasts. female man or woman. There's a lot of focus on getting equality, but in the end it's |
| 0:25.4 | about science and whoever did it we really want to do it and we want to do it excellent. |
| 0:31.8 | We are cannot be satisfied with just ending extreme poverty. |
| 0:40.0 | Our aim is shared and sustainable prospect. |
| 0:47.6 | And the key to that is science and innovation. |
| 0:53.4 | The youth of Africa are incredibly aspirant and they bring the kind of vigor that comes from |
| 1:02.2 | feeling you are the first of your culture and your people to have the chance to do this seriously. |
| 1:08.0 | There is absolutely no question we're going to see some remarkable young people emerge in scientific |
| 1:15.1 | fields in Africa in the next five to ten years. |
| 1:18.0 | Hello, I'm Julian Siddle. In this edition of Discovery from the BBC World Service, we're talking |
| 1:24.4 | revolution, scientific revolution. |
| 1:27.0 | Science is the foundation of everything. |
| 1:30.0 | Science is the basic tool we have to understand and impact the world around us. |
| 1:37.0 | It's the part of the relations that are the solid. |
| 1:41.0 | Just where will science be in 20 or 30 years time? Will the US and Europe still |
| 1:49.2 | dominate or will another part of the world take the lead? The key is going to be what the world's |
| 1:54.9 | youth do. Throughout history, major world-changing discoveries have been made by young people. |
| 2:01.5 | Einstein was just 36 when he came up with the concept of gravitational |
| 2:05.8 | waves and he's the inspiration for the next Einstein forum, a recent meeting in |
| 2:11.9 | Senegal bringing together scientific and political leaders. |
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