Painted (left to right) Rafiu Egoro, Justin Howkapi, Tchilbalo Parabali, Dazifa AhiyatogahCredit: Rafiyu Agoro
In April 2018, during its second year of the postdotoral fellowship at the University of New York, I and my colleagues presented an essence to the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), holding their annual meeting in September that in Montreal, Canada.
As a citizen of Togo with a limited experience of the International Conference Travel, I saw the opportunity to attend this three-day meeting as an important career-development opportunity, enabling me to share scientific discoveries, learning from others and get updates on emerging technologies.
But unlike my colleagues from Europe, and despite all of us having similar professional titles and immigration status in the United States, I needed a Canadian visa to participate. This is because documentation requirements were more rigid for citizens of African countries than the applicants from elsewhere.
I identified a private company that provided visa services for the Canadian government, and six weeks before the conference I took a half -day leave to participate in an appointment and can be paid $ 185 (then equal to US $ 140) to secure the passport stamp. A month later, I was given a second appointment, during which I got my passport and visa. Delay meant that registration, hotel reservation and air fare prices increased.
How can African scientists give back their home continent
Because most international meetings welcoming scientists around the world are held in the United States and Europe, scientists located outside these regions may find a particularly challenging appearance, often required – as it was done to me – to prepare the paperwork of months.
This is especially a case for PhD students in Africa who have never traveled abroad for work.
Keeping this in mind, and apprised of my own experiences, I participated with a mathematician and computer scientist Mohammad SISS located in Guinea to start a travel-introduction and advice program. (Mohammed and I had already found the African Diaspora Scientific Federation (ADSF), a network of scientists who have developed their career outside the continent.)
We contacted the American Society for Sale Biology (ASCB) in 2023, in which an annual program was jointly organized with European Molecular Biology Organization, to attend the next year’s cell bio meeting with the objective of helping an interdisciplinary group of students.
We wanted to create an AdsF-CSCB fellowship program, which would enable students located in Africa to present their research at the four-day cell bio meeting in San Diego, California in December 2024.
Career Resources for African Scientists
We launched calls for fellowship applications in May and received more than 50 applications in a month, selecting four applicants for the pilot program.
He was a bioscrury engineer Tchilablo Parabali at the University of Lomi in Togo; Poultry scientist Justin HowkePV, also based there; Dzifa ahiatrogah, a biomedical scientist in the scientist of science and technology of Kwame Nkrumah University; And Gerard Quarku, an aquatic microbiologist at the Water Research Institute at Tamle, Ghana.
In June, we sent letters of invitation and all paperwork for visa applications. The applicants were then spent about four months before their visa appointments in American embassies in their countries.
It is a matter of regret that Gerard’s application was unsuccessful. But by mid -November, we were able to buy plane tickets for the other three. Because the journey was next month, $ 1,200 round-trip ticket was doubled as it would have been purchased months ago. Fellowships also include hotel charges, airport costs -Hotell transfer and ACSB membership for 2025.
Harmony
To create an atmosphere of pre-meting chemical, the three Fellows traveled from Ekra to US West Coast, a two-day visit with a stopover in Europe and US East Coast. I was in touch during his visit and met him before his poster sessions to give advice between preparation and appearance of his conference in sessions.
I loved his practical aspects of science, which I classify as applicable biology. For example, the work of Tchilabalo uses a new diet formula to increase the poultry mass, which has social benefits.
Listening to the three students, I missed the importance of asking myself about the translational aspect of my own fundamental research, in which I use the pregnant mouse model to indicate the molecular mechanisms that improve the healthcase and lifetime of people with sickle-cell and kidney diseases.
I met students every day for breakfast and lunch, using time to review their plans for the day and provide advice when needed. We also took some evening walks, and colleagues attended two receptions, in which they network with other scientists.
