ACP 2018, Conference in Namibia

I'm David Bertsche, one of the lecturers at the 2018 African School of Physics in Namibia.
This year, for the first time, the program included a professional conference (The Biennial
African Conference on Fundamental Physics and Applications, ACP2018) running for five
days in parallel to the regular activities. The primary goal of the conference was to attract
ASP alumni to return and present on their scientific work -- and additionally to expose
current students to the contemporary format of scientific information exchange and debate
that is the research conference.

The topics called for covered a broad range: Astroparticle physics and cosmology;
Nuclear and particle physics; Event generator, detectors, simulation, statistical and data
analyses; Medical and radiation physics; Renewable energies and energy efficiency;
Material physics; Physics education; Physics communication; and High performance
computing.

The targeted participants were also very broad, i.e., "ACP is an international and
professional conference opened to physicists, physics teachers, and policy makers in
education and research from all over Africa and beyond." A total of 171 participants
registered and 136 contributions were selected by the organizers. The final distribution of
talks accepted by topic is shown in the the pie chart.

The conference was well received by the participants, especially the integration with the
school and the forum day, which provided some diversity from the normal conference format
by allowing interaction with students and policy makers. The broad nature of the conference
was a challenge for some participants, who did not have the time and/or interest to
participate beyond the session covering their specific research area.

One unique highlight was the conference excursion to a local wildlife preserve.
And many participants took additional vacation time to explore the spectacular
natural beauty that Namibia has to offer, from desert and ocean views, to herds of
elephants and vast starry skies. No doubt the successful format of the conference will
be carried forward to ACP2020 in Morocco.

Amount of Time Allocated to Talks by Topic

Best Questions Ever

I am Ken Cecire and my role in the African School of Physics 2018 was to facilitate Teacher and Learner Workshops. We worked with ~1100 high school learners in 4 days in Windhoek. It was pretty exciting! Learners got hands-on experience with cloud chambers and a cosmic ray detector, organized their own versions of the Standard Model with Particle Cards (originally "Steckbriefe" designed by Netzwerk Teilchenwelt in Germany), took part in "human" demonstrations of accelerator physics, and asked lots of questions. Lots and lot of questions! The best questions are those that made the physicists think and maybe even say, "We just do not know."

I was able to tweet about the experience (@physicsIMC on Twitter; check out this tweet and this one too.) And it was great to use activities from QuarkNet!

Particle cards.

Q&A with Gopolang from BNL and SA.

Rolling with Rutherford.

ASP2018 Forum Day

My name is Steve Muanza,
                                           I'm an experimental particle physicist with CNRS-IN2P3. I'm based at the Center for Particle Physics in Marseille, France. I'm a member of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN, where I participate to searches for Supersymmetry and the usage of Monte Carlo tools. I'm french, but my parents come from the DR Congo.
I am the initiator and one of the co-founders of the "African School of Physics" (ASP). For ASP2018, we organized several concurrent events: on top of the school for the graduate students, there was the first "African Conference of Physics", a workshop for the high school teachers and outreach to secondary school pupils.
During my 2 weeks stay, I mostly supervised the students program and I gave a lecture about "BSM searches at the LHC".
During the Forum Day, we discuss higher education and capacity building policies with the local authorities, but also with representatives of other african countries, especially the host country of the next edition of ASP. This year this was held on july 4th at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and was directly followed by the school dinner at the University of Namibia (UNAM). Both events were attended by the students, the lecturers and the organizers. The ASP Local Organizing Committee (LOC) was represented by Dr E. Kasai (UNAM), Prof. R. Steenkamp (UNAM), Dr M. Backes (UNAM), Prof. D. SINGH (NUST), Prof. A. ZULU (NUST), among others. The ASP International Organizing Committee (IOC) was represented by Dr C. DARVE (ESS Lund), Prof. B. ACHARYA (King's College London & ICTP Trieste), Dr K. ASSAMAGAN (BNL USA) and myself. NUST and the local press had assigned some photographers to take pictures of the event, and G. TEKOUTE (Telecom Responisble with Eniyo Ingenierie, France) also took pictures and film of the event for the IOC. We had the honour to count distinguished guests in the audience, namely:
. Dr T. TJIVIKUA: Vice-Chancellor of NUST,
. Dr N. TITUS: Chairperson of the Board of Commissioners of the National Commission on Research Science and Technology,
. Honourable K. HANSE-HIMARWA representing the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture,
. Dr J. HYBASKOVA: Head of the European Union Delegation to Namibia.
The first half of the forum was quite formal: it started and ended with the African Union and the Namibian anthems. Dr A. PETERS, the Dean of the faculty of computing at NUST, served as a master of ceremony. A few addresses were delivered:
. a welcome by NUST vice-chancelor, Dr TJIVIKUA
. the IOC mentorship program was described by Mrs P. RAMOHLOUOANE,
. the ASP was presented by Dr K. ASSAMAGAN on behalf of the IOC,
. a vote of thanks was presented by Dr E. KASAI on behalf of the LOC,
. the ASP2018 students feedback was given by a student of NUST: Mr I. SAKARIA,
And talks concerning the namibian strategy for capacity building were presented by Dr TITUS and Mrs HANSE-HIMARWA. There was also a presentation of Morroco as the host for ASP2020 by Prof. M. CHABAB from Marrakech University.
During the second half the forum the talks were more focused on the specific actions and plans by several international physics institutions.  The South-Africa CERN program was described and the initiatives by ICTP (Italy), BNL (USA) were presented. Within this context I presented the CNRS-IN2P3 (France) initiatives. Two talks described in particular how the ambitious project of a "Square Kilometer Array", and more generally astronomy, can generate new knowledges on top of contributing to african capacity building strategies.
Finally, two additional addresses delivered at the school dinner: one quite insprirational by Dr HYBASKOVA (EU) and the closing one by Mr N. LUPAHLA (representing the Ministry of H. Education, Training and Innovation).
My personal impression was that lots of useful informations were exchanged, but no live discussions occured due to time restrictions.

ASP 2018 in Namibia - Experience by Adriano Pamain

My name is Adriano Pamain from Tanzania. I am a PhD student at University of Dodoma, Tanzania. My current research is on Photo-voltaic in which I am characterizing and modeling the Performance of different PV technologies. I did my Masters in Material Science and Engineering at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology and my Research was in Natural Dyes Co Sensitization in Solar Cells Application: Uv-Vis Spectra and Outdoor Photo-voltaic Performance.   

Being among participants of the African School of Physics and Application (ASP-2018) I would like to thank the Member of the International Organizing Committee under leadership of Professor Ketevi Adikle Assamagan for granting me the opportunity to participate in this amazing event. Thanks also go to the local organizing committee under leadership of Dr. Eli Kasai for helping us in many situations and adaptation to Namibian environment including food and weather condition. They did a wonderful job for arranging good excursion during weekend days and we really enjoyed it. Thanks to UNAM students assistant for everything they did for us. Lastly but important thanks to our Sponsors who always make this school possible.

It was my first time to participate this wonderful professional event.  I have been really exposed to many things especially on fundamental physics and its applications. It was quite amazing and fascinating to meet different experienced lecturers and speakers from different remarkable institutions all over the world. I cannot explain enough their commitment for ASP through their lectures and tutorial provided.  The knowledge we got from them will be remembered forever.

I also got to meet so many wonderful students from Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Benin, Egypt, Togo, Senegal, Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Brazzaville, South Africa, USA and Namibia.   They greatly inspired me a lot both socially and academically through their area of specialization in Physics.

As a special added value, this school gave me an opportunity to network with these colleagues, which is an exceptional opportunity for horizontal exchange of experience. I am  looking forward to meet them in future.