welcome to education in our community i am your host for this segment the reverend robert make nine and i am honored to have as my distinguished g and we are glad that you are here and every time we get to the heart of the discussion it is time to wrap up the show and so  i just want to dale's right into the heart of the matter we had an opportunity to talk earlier and you were sharing with me that you just recently back from a trip to the motherland i think nigeria was one of the countries that you visited on the continent here and you shared some of your purpose for being there and we want to talk about sad but then you said something and i had never even known that it was in these existence prior to your sharing with me you said something about the nelson mandela university yes and that there are four of them is that correct that's correct and we know that president nelson mandela just recently transcended how long have they been established and tell me a little about them and your involvement with them i just got back from nigeria just before thanksgiving and we had two functions that we were presenting in nigeria one function had to do with  spatial information systems we were there to expose people that we would be training trainers of how to use g i software the other activity had to do with presenting science technology engineering math bad ching and i boys and girls scouts of the military or anyone who has a degree recognizing their complements we call those badge is yeah we've got to present that to whomever in the areas of every culture of food security well while we were there we had the opportunity to do business in this university and one of the universities that nelson mandela had established in his name there private universities they have to do with training graduate students in areas of science and technology primarily graduate student he had undergrad right right  you'd be working on your master's degree or your ph d or your fellowship one of the universities is located in a blue chip and nigeria the capital nigerians we had an opportunity to speak to the president of that university who was familiar with us because he also was a professor at princeton university so we get to be pretty close while i was there anyway that university is a subgroup of the pan african university system their holy right yes now i'm not the only one i have some cousins in the audience yes tell us about this  form this concept call pan african universities pan african university yes and these these would be universities where they were concentrated on certain areas of study one of the universities that was adopted for size technology and engineering is the university of kenya and and so on a lot of resources will be put at the university to let people know that we are as black people studying engineering and science in africa but there's centers of excellence that are tied to the universe so this network is being created throughout the continen to enhance our developments in whatever feels of studying that might be available we had opportunity dr isn't isn't a as a fellow he's is tied to us he's a mathematician by trade he's from the republic of the ne and we have friends in republican nominee next door to nigeria so we've had opportunity to work with him also in his presentation of our workshop our workshop was funded basically through unesco the united nations arm for education science and culture is that right yes now let me back up in please forgive me but i don't want this to slip by keep dropping the name i love that centers of excellence yes i would rather that to be how we referred to the process of education here rather than public education call them centers of excellence yes i like that yes issue that is official title in africa and just as an aside the african diaspora through the aid you is now listed as the six region of africa people need to understand it to six region that i mean that we are in the process right now formulating the delegations to go to africa union and vote on what happens with africa and africa in the diasporas relationship to africa that's happening right now about how black people throughout the world were better interface with africa we also talked about how we can get a better handle on producing our own money producing our own industries how do we enhance our ability to feed ourselves how do we better handle and manage our raw materials research and resources so it was great it was basically a ten year process what happened with this there are two things that have happened just recently and two thousand and eleven there was a the second fifty year manifest of developing the first fifty year manifesto was develop republican and we've put together that manifest all is now add to has been accepted by the africa you but as an adjunct to that we developed a civil society declaration which further on how we are going to  effectively in relation to africa now that's just one thing in addition to this the african side of against the two main thrusts is to get more of us involved in the world of science and technology and where developments inside the technologies are taking us in the future now you keep mentioning the way upside what is that web site our website is w w w w and you can get our e mail addy hell you can get our phone number and if you want to get involved in anything that we are involved in just sent as an e mail address and we'll put you in contact with the right people ok now do you have an annual calendar posted in terms of your activity what is open to the public what we have and we listed on our website we have various activities that we are involved in and people come to us from around the world with their projects and they use us as a networking tool to enhance their projects as a sample the people came to us to see how we can better our present g i a software know that we are also involved with that and we're using that tool to enhance how we can better bring people from subsistence agriculture to agribusiness as xampp only in nigeria and use that as a model so we'll be starting with about six farmlands in nigeria and then we're going to expand it to senegal and guyana to look at the western africa region and use that as models to show people that yes through a network in black if i use it typically saying and geale spatial information systems geospatial yeah some people say geographic information systems now people are familiar with what we call there is information they can be placed in that region you can say ok what is the temperature in that region what is the material how many people are in that area what's the nature of the people there and their economics you but all kind of information in a geographic location now with that information managers can get a better handle on what is just in a given location marketing people use this as a tool military use it satellite is in a facing with a point in on earth so this data is used everywhere and has been going on here in united states is about ninety sixty accident and you also kalos accomplishments tell us more about this bad gene and use liken it to the girl scouts and eagle scouts and what have you they receive a badge is after completion of some stage and training in new york we all have some form of a badge when you get a degree from a high school diploma they give you a bad just call a diploma so that's a badge my high is really plumb and the is one of my badge and one of your badge carpentry work we used the concept of begging to let people know that individuals have many skills that is not necessarily tied to the degrees where other primarily  get together with like a macarthur foundation as some other foundation and it decided to use this digitally so you can take these various badges that you have if you will and digitize them conceptually and put them in your back explain to us what you mean by you can go into my backpack or your backpack yes and see the badge is you know do you mean by ok we know with a backpack years yes we see students using  resume in your backpack so a person pulls out your resume and find out there's more on their resume beyond the degrees you might have received in public schools now we have we in history but a lot of people don't know the dispersant also know how to build a house yeah best and also knows how to be a good or toward good writer you know a good painter a good great artist a good a great musician all of those can be awarded to that individual and so when a person again looks at their resume in their backpack they can see that that individual who graduates from college or that person has a good skills and being aware housing they also have skills of showing up on time they're good workers these things employers need to know and also will help the businesses be able to better utilize that individual on the job site yeah  learned within the family how do i get that out there no one knows this and that you you'd only one who knows what it was as happening in your they're using this concept more and more you can go on the on the internet and just farm industry in agricultural industry so if a person is good and work with pineapple as apple but now need to go to another farm site how does the owner of the new farm site know the dispers and how do you tell if minerals or you some people want us to look at how you lecture dams and are they operating properly so people in in a a size network pretty much  including the continent of africa is it international is it yes here in the bay area is international i just so i'm to be in be here but the african dude has representatives from forty seven countries forty forty seven countries primarily on the continent we have primarily really here out of the seven hundred eighty s i fellows  about three hundred fifty to four hundred of them are in the on the stakes but we have we have fellows from thirty three african countries we have as i felt in the caribbean and in brazil and we also have a as i fel efficient way of communicating to our children about the accomplishments of black people is science and technology so somebody young people came to us and came up with this concept of bridging the divide mixers so we are now in the process of having mixers in various areas throughout the united states in different parts of the world where people just get together as a mixer where professionals interface with grass tools who had to face w get people excited about science and technology what is going on with this money being spent going to mars how many african americans are involved in it how many african americans and black people throughout the world are involved in coal ball how many black people are overseeing those mining of those operations the what he says in its name is raymond webster he has published a book called african american first in science and technology but aside from that he has a business where he allows people to asses that database that he's developed people the first minister of science and technology for south africa dr magenta he's as a fellow so again we're sort of spread out and anybody can come into the network and ask for support on a project that they might be interested in that they see the need for people with science and technology excellent now is there a mentoring program and interning program say for instance as this bright young secondary not even later they call it middle school now student and you see the potential there you see the god given genius can they access someone from the a s i and what we read is in mentor what we do recommend and we partner with organizations every college and and university in the united states that has an engineering or science program these black students are there they now have what is call in his speech professionals there's thirteen thousand of them around the world so what i recommend for the student is to get involved with the local chapter of people because one they're closer to the young person's age and that's one reason we formulated that so called to use e mail us all right i want to thank you for taking this time out to join us own education in our community that information was so valuable