The pride of every academic institution is in the calibre of alumni it produces and the impact they have on its immediate communities. Additionally, there is strength in numbers as there is in unity. Most AIMS programs take up to a year to complete, which does not allow students from different cohorts to interact while on campus. It is on this basis that the AIMS Alumni Meet-Up was initiated. The vision of the Meet-Up is to gather alumni of different cohorts and across various centres but currently living in the same city to share ideas on how their impacts can be felt in their neighbours and share their post AIMS success stories among themselves.
The Alum Meet-Up initiative began in 2018 and was put on a brief hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on mass gathering in open places. Now that COVID- 9 is becoming a wicked neighbour that we have learnt to cope with, the Alumni Meet-Ups have been resumed. The AIMS Alumni Office aims at organizing five such meet-ups across Africa, taking different shapes and forms from one country to the other.
In March this year, the alumni in Ghana decided to open up their meet-up to all women in the field of STEM by inviting them to a dinner to share their successes and challenges. On the panel were Prof. Elsie Kauffman (the University of Ghana and Quiz Mistress of the popular National Science and Maths Quiz), Mrs Larisa Akrofie (Program Manager at the MasterCard Foundation and Founder of Levers in Heels), Mrs Akosua Saah Buckman (Head of the Ghana Museum of Science and Technology) and Mrs Winnie Nakiyingi ( Tutor and Founder of Words that Count).
Before this Ghana event, the alumni in Rwanda had hosted some industry personalities to share their inspiring stories, highlight the impact of the alumni in their various institutions, and discuss why more students should be trained in the field of Mathematics and its applications. A similar event happened in Senegal, and plans are on the way to host the same in Nigeria and Cameroon.
The AlumoftheWeek series will take a different form in the coming few weeks. We will be showcasing some of the testimonies of these alumni across the host countries of the Meet-Up events. Today’s edition highlights Fadel Thior, an AIMS Rwanda 2020 Alumnus of the African Masters in Machine Intelligence (AMMI) Program. See the video that summarises his experience and exposure below.