From iwan at reahl.org  Fri Nov 30 01:38:16 2018
From: iwan at reahl.org (Iwan Vosloo)
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 08:38:16 +0200
Subject: [Python-africa] Fwd: Fwd: (Scientific) Python communities in Africa
In-Reply-To: <CAHSxt9vfu-KWMDhpz4eqxvdPBU60Lbxi5PgD9PgFwv7TYnW1nw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHSxt9vfu-KWMDhpz4eqxvdPBU60Lbxi5PgD9PgFwv7TYnW1nw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5d0a77af-9a71-4cfe-3847-581324abfb79@reahl.org>

Hi all,

Please see below email from Alistair Miles that came to me via Marlene.

Alistair is running a project under the auspices of the Pan-African 
Mosquito Control Association and is looking for local data science 
teaching efforts they can link into. (Where local means "various 
countries in Africa").


Thanks
Iwan


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: *Alistair Miles* <alimanfoo at googlemail.com 
<mailto:alimanfoo at googlemail.com>>
Date: Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 10:39 AM
Subject: (Scientific) Python communities in Africa
To: <mmhangami at zimbopy.com <mailto:mmhangami at zimbopy.com>>


Hi Marlene,

Thanks a lot for getting in touch. To give you the full context, I'm 
working with an organisation called the Pan-African Mosquito Control 
Association (PAMCA - http://www.pamca.org/) who have funding from the 
Gates Foundation to launch nine new project studying the genomics of 
African malaria mosquitoes. Each project will likely run in a separate 
country, and I expect there will be representation from all regions. 
PAMCA is also broadly working to develop a network and capacity for 
mosquito research, and runs an annual conference with good 
representation from malaria-endemic countries across the continent.

The software that we've developed for analysing large-scale genomic data 
is all based on the scientific Python ecosystem (numpy, pandas etc.), 
and in order to enable the researchers funded through the PAMCA/Gates 
programme to leverage these data, we need to build some capacity in the 
fundamentals of general data analysis and data science using Python. It 
would also be cool to connect those researchers with a general Python 
data science community if one exists in their country, as this is a 
great way to learn and make connections.

So I'm interested to know what training activities relevant to 
scientific data analysis and data science are being run anywhere in 
Africa, particularly at the beginner level, with a view to seeing if 
researchers in any of the countries we are working with might be able to 
attend local training activities rather than having to travel 
internationally or setup new courses locally.

More generally, it would be cool to do what I can to support and promote 
Python communities in Africa particularly in the scientific space.

I've had a number of responses regarding local Python communities in 
various countries, but still have very little information on training 
courses or other formal/semi-formal learning activities being run, so if 
you have any links/contacts/knowledge there in particular I'd be very 
grateful.

Best wishes,
Alistair
-- 
Please feel free to resend your email and/or contact me by other means 
if you need an urgent reply.

Alistair Miles
Head of Epidemiological Informatics
Centre for Genomics and Global Health
Big Data Institute
Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery
Old Road Campus
Headington
Oxford
OX3 7LF
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1865 743596 or +44 (0)7866 541624
Email: alimanfoo at googlemail.com <mailto:alimanfoo at googlemail.com>
Web: http://a <http://purl.org/net/aliman>limanfoo.github.io/ 
<http://limanfoo.github.io/>
Twitter: @alimanfoo <https://twitter.com/alimanfoo>