Author: @Bea

In this conversation, Connie speaks with Paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer Dr. Isaiah Nengo. He held a BSc in Zoology and Botany from the University of Nairobi and a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the National Museums of Kenya and the University of Nairobi in 2012/13. Dr. Nengo was also a winner of numerous awards and honors and was Fellow of the Institute for the Science of Origins. Why do we need to learn African history? Why do we need to tell about it? How can our past contribute to a better future? What are the stories that need to be told?

This video was posted after Dr. Isaiah Nengo passed away and it is shared in his memory. We are sure you will understand our sadness for the loss of an amazing scholar even more after listening to this very inspirational conversation.

Dr. Divine Fuh is a social anthropologist from Cameroon, and Director of HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His work focuses on the politics of suffering and smiling amongst African urban youth, the political economy of African knowledge production – particularly publishing, and the ethics of AI. He is founding Managing Editor of Langaa RPCIG, former Director of Publications and Dissemination at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), former Chair of the Council of Management of the Africa Book Collective, and currently Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the new journal Global Africa, and Co-Chair of the Global Africa Group (GAG) of the World Universities Network (WUN). He defines himself as a disobedient knowledge activist.

Conni’s guest today is Binyam Sisay Mendisu. He completed his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Oslo in 2008. Between 2008 and 2016, he taught full-time at Addis Ababa University (AAU) as an Assistant and later Associate professor. Currently, he is serving as an Associate Professor of African Languages and Linguistics at The Africa Institute, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Binyam’s research considers language as an archive of local knowledge and memory.

His (co)-authored publications include Multilingual Ethiopia: Linguistic Challenges and Capacity Building Efforts (2016) and Restoring African Studies to Its Linguistic Identity:
Reflection on Ethiopian Studies (2014).
Recently, he worked as an education specialist at UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) leading programs and projects on teacher policy development, mother tongue and early childhood education. He is a member of the Global Young Academy, and an inaugural fellow and Steering Committee member of the African Science Leadership Program (ASLP). He also serves as Vice President for Capacity Development in the Governing Board of International Network of Government Science Advice (INGSA).

In this episode, Connie speaks with Dexter Tagwireyi. He is an academic pharmacist-toxicologist and Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Zimbabwe. He has been teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels for almost 20 years now and has supervised numerous student research projects at both these levels including 5 completed PhDs.

Today's guest is Sibusiso Biyela. He is a science communicator at ScienceLink, a science communication company in South Africa, and he is also a science writer for SciBraai, a South African science news website. He pursued his Bsc Chemistry in Physics at the University of Zululand and he is currently completing his degree at the University of Pretoria.

Sibusiso has worked as a news reporter, a television producer, and he has been a professional science communicator since 2016. He has been a public speaker at international conferences in the United States and various engagements in South Africa where he speaks about decolonizing science through science communication. His latest project has been helping to train a natural-language-processing algorithm to translate scientific terms into six African languages, all based on research conducted in Africa.

Our Guest today is Ayobami Ojebode. He is a professor of Applied Communication in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His research interests are community communication; community governance; new media; and political communication. His works have been published in reputable outlets in many countries.

Professor Ojebode has been a visiting researcher, a visiting scholar, a keynote speaker, a consultant, a trainer and/or examiner in universities and research institutes in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Peru and the United States. He delivered the keynote paper at the 2012 National Programmes Planning Conference of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Akure, Ondo State, titled Radio programming in the twenty-first century: face-to-face with reality.

This podcast was born somewhere in 2016, in the small village of Nkozi in Central Uganda, not far from one of the spots where the equator line crosses the country. I had recently completed my PhD in Education and was involved in various projects in which we were trying to understand how we could improve the outcomes of our education system – especially those in the early years. For decades, now, the national assessments on the outcomes in the early years of schooling in Uganda had repeatedly shown that after 3 years in primary school, up to 7 out of every 10 children were unable to read at Primary 2 level and that by the 7th year of primary school 3 out of 10 still couldn’t read at Primary 2 level. The findings for numeracy were not much better, and it seemed that many other African countries were facing similar problems. The other reason it made sense for me to focus on the early childhood years is also that when these early basic skills are not properly developed, it becomes harder for children to acquire the higher-order skills that are the focus at higher levels of education.

A new podcast about education in Africa for our collective #futureframedTV podcast hosted by the amazing Dr. Connie Nshemereirwe.

Dr. Connie Nshemereirwe is an independent science and policy facilitator and acts at the science-policy interface as a trainer, writer, and speaker. She is the director of the Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) based at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and also works with the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) based in Nairobi, Kenya. Through organizations like these, she works with both academics and policymakers to contribute to evidence-based policy.

Her undergraduate studies were in Civil Engineering, but in later years she made the shift to Education by completing a master’s degree in the design of education and training systems at the University of Twente in 2004, later followed by a PhD in Educational Measurement at the same University in 2014.

She is also active in Civil Society through the Ugandan Think Tank, Kigo Thinkers, and speaks at and attends various public engagement activities on the subject of adequacy and relevance of formal education in Uganda.

Away from work, Dr. Nshemereirwe enjoys reading fiction as well as works on a wide range of subjects, from philosophy to personal development. She is also an active Toastmaster: a member of two clubs and founder of a university-based Toastmaster club.

Thays A. Barreto is an Aerospace Engineer with 8 years of experience in the aerospace sector. Currently, she is an MSc candidate in Materials Science and Technology, an MBA student in Business Management, and the CEO of a new space startup called Beyond Space.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thays-a-b…

In this episode of #futureframedTV, podcast number 12 of Innovation from the Global South, Dr. Almas Taj Awan speaks with the founders of QazTracker, a startup based in Kazakhstan that helps farmers to track the health status of cattle and horses in real time, using IoT technology and Machine Learning and revolutionize farming in the country.

The guests are
Dinar Benseitov – CEO and Founder of QazTracker.

Technical background and experience in creating startup projects of more than 8 years. 2 years experience in Fintech Startup. Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Power engineering.
Miras Tursunaliyev co-founder of company. Operates as the chief financial officer due to his professional background. He has worked for several well-known international companies as a financial consultant.
The combined experience and qualifications of the two founders made it possible to have a balanced organizational structure and abilities to look at given problems from different angles.

What does it take to become an innovator?

In this episode of #futureframedTV, podcast number 11 of Innovation from the Global South, Almas speaks with Amirkhan Omarov, founder & CEO at Parqour, smart parking solution based on a number plate recognition algorithm.

The startup was founded 2 years ago and currently operating in 8 countries (Kazakhstan, UAE, USA, Russia, Ukraine, etc), in 200 parking buildings. He is an expert in PropTech (property technologies), and has over 8 years in innovations in Property & Construction as a Chief Digital Officer for the largest Central Asian real estate companies (BI Group, Mercury Properties). Prior to coming to the real estate, Amirkhan served as a strategy consultant at Ernst & Young and McKinsey & co for 4 years.

In this episode of #futureframedTV, podcast number 10 of Innovation from the Global South, Almas speaks with Marcelo Vieira, the founder of GreenBug Predictions in Brazil. The company uses remote sensing, IoT devices, and AI for forest protection.

As they write on their website “We love tech! We love nature! We help to keep our planet green”.
Instead of concentrating on fighting the fires, they try to predict them and work on avoiding them.

Here is the website (in Portuguese):
https://www.greenbug.com.br/

What do we need to disrupt and improve the health system?

In this podcast episode number 9, Almas speaks with the founders of Ana Health, a Brazilian start-up that wants to change the health system! Almas speaks with the inspirational founders, Vinicius Molina Garcia (“My purpose is to develop technologies that save lives”), Víctor Macul (“Building a new way of taking care of health”), and Olívio Souza Neto (“We are not a health plan. We are a new way to take care of you!”)

“We are a digital health service focused on preventive, predictive, proactive, and personalized medicine.

With our plan, you have a healthcare team to call your own. Affordable professionals, who accompany you in an individualized, integral way and for a lifetime!

We are not a health plan.
We are a new way to take care of you!” https://www.anahealth.app/

Let us plant trees and educate young people in Africa! Social innovation and change in Uganda.

In this podcast episode number 8, Almas speaks with Dr. Charles Batte, the founder of Tree Adoption Uganda (TAU) - a youth-centric NGO powered by the vision of creating communities where people and nature flourish.

Innovation from the Global South - Hosted by Dr. Almas Taj Awan is part of the #FutureFramed.TV. The collective podcast platform of Traces&Dreams.

Dr. Charles Batte was born in Kamwokya; one of the most impoverished slums in Uganda. He grew up in an environment characterized by lack of opportunity, poverty, crime, drugs and poor health service delivery. This early experience inculcated in him a spirit of social responsibility and a desire to create positive social impact that has been responsible for his work towards sustainable development.

LINKING SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP | Science Entrepreneurship | Lucas Delgado-Emerge

How can we boost science-based innovation? In this podcast episode number 7, Almas speaks with Lucas Delgado, Co-Founder and Director of Emerge- Brasil, a company boosting science-based innovation in Brazil, improving its social impact and revenues.

Innovation from the Global South – Hosted by Dr. Almas Taj Awan is part of the #FutureFramed.TV. The collective podcast platform of Traces&Dreams.

Lucas is a partner and head of projects and new business at Emerge. He graduated in Industrial Engineering from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (BRA) and had a corporate finance specialization from the University at Albany (USA). He has developed many projects integrating science-based innovation with companies of different industries, managing the assessment of technologies, and developing innovation strategies.

How do we reach patients in remote areas? What does it mean to start a start-up in a developing country? How can we have equal healthcare access across the Globe?

In this podcast episode number 6, Almas speaks with Dr.Leyla Taghizade, Founder of NewSpace Business Accelerator & Open Innovation and co-founder of Reseptron, a mobile health application to connect underserved patients with medical organizations in #Azerbaijan.

Leyla holds a Ph.D. in Healthcare Management from the State Institute for Advanced Education of Physicians and a Medical Diploma from Azerbaijan Medical University with 10+ years of experience as a CEO of the private clinic. Leyla is the co-founder of the Reseptron mobile telehealth application for patients in remote areas to enhance patient’s access to medical services. She is a member of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science ) since 2016 and an alumna (2014) of the SABIT Program by the U.S. Department of State. She is the holder of “Female Founder Fellowship from the Founder Institute which is a Silicon Valley-based acceleration program for tech startups. Since December 2017 she is a regional reviewer and mentor at the Gist-TECH -I competition with the graduate mentees in the ForbesU30 list. As a mother of three daughters, she believes that supporting women and girls in tech can help to build a more sustainable economy. Currently, she’s involved with ICESCO Accelerator as a part of NewSpace Open Innovation.

How can we fight women’s harassment? What does it take to be an activist? In this podcast episode number 5, Almas speaks with Dr. Nova Ahmed an Associate Professor at North South University, in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Dr. Nova Ahmed is a computer scientist living in Bangladesh. She has finished her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and came back to Bangladesh to make changes. She used her experiences of working with sensors to fight social challenges such as systems to protect women from sexual harassment as she returned.

She continued to use her work that could support marginal communities with low-cost, locally available solution approaches. She has worked with Google to explore the inclusion of women and marginal communities in technology. She is currently working on a funded project to enhance the inclusion of women in digital finance through enabling better technology designs funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her work ensures social justice and feminist human-computer interaction.

Nova is one of the founders and one of the Executive Committee members of the National Young Academy Bangladesh, she is a member of the Executive Committee of Global Young Academy, Fellow of Sangat, the feminist network in South Asia, founding board member of Kaan Pete Roi: a suicide prevention call center. She is an active volunteer of the Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad, Children’s Science Congress and Missing Daughter’s Initiative. She is the Chair of SIGCHI, Dhaka Chapter in Bangladesh. She has organized the Ada Lovelace Celebration to include more women in technology in Bangladesh for 2020 and 2021. In her free time, she is busy with her two daughters and a fun partner!

In this podcast episode, Almas speaks with Dr. Sudesh Sivarasu, an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. Sivarasu completed his undergraduate studies in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering from Madras University in 2004. He continued for his masters in Biomedical Engineering (2006) followed by Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from VIT University, India. Dr. Sivarasu’s research is in the field of medical device innovation and creating affordable health technologies. He heads the Medical Devices and Orthopaedic Biomechanics Research Group at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

In this podcast episode, Almas speaks with Dr. Iffat Zafar Aga, COO, and co-founder of Sehat Kahani, a telemedicine startup based in Pakistan.

“Affordable And Convenient Healthcare Access From Best Doctors In Pakistan. An all-female health provider network that provides quality healthcare to those in need, using telemedicine.”
Her startup has been part of some prominent global accelerators and has won notable awards which include SPRING Accelerator, Engro I am Change Awards, KITE-OSLO Local Competition, MIT Enterprise Forum, Seedstars Regional Event, Winner of “The best in Healthcare” at GIST (Global Innovation through Science and Technology) Tech I, Invest2 Innovate accelerator in Pakistan.

Let’s talk about providing education to out-of-school children in remote areas using technology.

Let the children learn!

In episode number 2, Almas speaks with Dr. Shahid Qamar is a Research Scientist and Social entrepreneur. Dr. Qamar is very actively involved in social and community-based projects in the USA and Pakistan. He founded Teach a Kid Make Individual Life (TAKMIL) which is an international non-profit dedicated to providing education to out-of-school children in remote communities of Pakistan. The organization has served around 2000 children in 30 communities across Pakistan through a unique disruptive educational model which integrates technology.

https://takmil.org/

In this first episode, Almas speaks with Tendekayi Katsiga, an innovator and CEO at Deaftronics, a company based in Botswana.

Tendekayi Katsiga is an electronics enthusiast who has developed the world’s first solar-powered hearing aid. He received training in North America, Africa, and Europe. He has been to all the continents in the world preaching the gospel on hearing loss awareness. His career span has attracted more than 20 national and international awards among them Builders of Africa’s Future Award in Silicon Valley USA 2020, Johnson & Johnson Africa Innovation Challenge Award 2019, South African Designers Awards (DISA), National Design for Development Award (NDDA) and Potential for Societal Impact Award in the 2015 GIST Tech-I Competition. He has been featured in the Newsweek magazine, National Geographic, BBC articles, Wired a high Tech Magazine in Japan, Daily Edventures Post, I am Youngpreneur, The Heretic, and Smart Planet.

Find out more here:
https://deaftronics.com/

Dr. Almas Taj Awan is a Scientist and Entrepreneur based in Brazil. On this Channel, she invites technological and social Innovators from the Global South to share their journey and inspire the global audience.
The Global South includes Latin America and the Caribbean, Pacific Islands, Africa, and the developing countries in Asia, including the Middle East. In these countries, the recent trend is to solve local problems for and by local users.
So be ready to travel through the world of creative people from resource-scarce regions of the world and have important insights to get inspired.
For questions, feedback, or getting featured on this channel in case you are an Innovator from Global South, please write a comment!