 So I'm here with Syriah Sikanda, who's one of our postdocs in the math section. He just came back from a school in Rwanda, so I thought we could chat with him a little bit about it. So let's start with, maybe you tell us a bit of your background, Hamal. How did you get to mathematics and how did you get to HDP? How was your career path? So I was, I'm from Pakistan and I went from a bachelor's to US. And the initial plan was to, I always wanted to get a PhD, but the initial plan was in economics. In economics. And at some point somebody told me it would be really useful if I take some math courses. And that was the end of it. That was basically, there was actually a special semester. So you have this choice of going for a study abroad for one semester. And I ended up doing it at university, which was just two hours away. But they had a special math program at Penn State called Mathematics Advanced Study Semester. And after that it was just, well that semester made the decision for me basically. I was going to pursue mathematics. And then I went to Germany and then to Denmark. And now I'm here as a postdoc. Very good. So how about the experience in Rwanda and Kigali? How was all of that? So let me just give a little bit of background on the school. This was organized by EAUMP, East African Universities Mathematics Program. And joined with ICTP. And the main organizer was Bala Shendroy at Oxford University. This EAUMP has been running schools so they sort for some time. Yes, I believe so. I think it's the first time we do something that's a full collaboration with them. I believe it's a program that is specifically designed in the mission objective. It says that it's to make the situation of mathematics better in East African universities. And I think it's been going on for about four or five years or something like that. Not really sure where. So the school itself was three weeks long. I went for the second week. Total of six courses by seven lecturers. And 50 students, about 50 students. From all over East Africa, right? Yes, so a few students that I... Well, people that I got to talk to, there was a guy from Cameroon. One from Ethiopia, a girl from Tanzania. A bunch of students from Kenya. Uganda as well. Uganda and Ghana as well. And Rwanda of course. And of course Rwanda. So it was students from all over Africa really. And they seem to be getting along well too. So that was good to see. That was interesting. And yeah, so... And how was your experience, your course? I mean, this is the first time in Africa, I presume, or not? Well, teaching mathematics, yes. But I've been to Africa before. Anyways, that was for a different purpose. The course, I really enjoyed it. So I was in Galois theory. And I used a lot of computer experiments, which I think were really popular with students as well. So they used their laptops? They all had laptops, except a few who did have laptops, but decided not to bring it to class for some reason. But all of them had their laptops. The internet connection was good enough, so we could all download a PariGP. The first day I was there. So PariGP is a software package for mostly numbers theory. I mean, that's the main drive, but it's very powerful, all kinds of things. It's been going on for at least the early 80s. Well, I can safely say this is the first time these students were exposed to it. They didn't know about it. They didn't even know in general of software of this kind or not this particular one? This particular one, definitely not. Some of them knew of Mathematica, but they never used it. Actually, some of the students were doing applied mathematics and they were more aware of Mathematica, not beyond that. But the use of computers in number theory really surprised all of them. They always thought it was idiomatic. You sit down and you learn these things from the book. This is the first time they were actually playing with the thing. And they enjoyed it, you said? Well, they asked me a lot of questions. They stayed on after the classes just playing with that. I guess they were enthusiastic about it too. So they were trying to download the extra packages that you get. It only computes Galois groups of polynomials of degree less than or equal to 7, but you can install something which would allow you to 11. So most of them did that and still they were a little disappointed. They wanted to go higher. So one of them codes it now for higher degree polynomials. And I think you mentioned something that you are kind of out of the blue. You decided to give a prize. Yeah, that's true. So it seemed to just create a little bit of a competition there. I just asked them a question and said the first. So it was basically asking for an example of a polynomial which was not Galois, but the Galois group was smaller than the symmetric group of its degree. And they really seemed to enjoy it. So they said that the first person who gets it would get a prize. So what did you do in the end with the prize? Well, I bought them lunch basically and I think more exciting. I wish I could do something more exciting but that was it basically. And you said everybody sort of sat down to try to do this. Yes, the first example that somebody came up with there was other people who checked it and said it's not true. So it was about 10 or 15 minutes before. It was a group of three students who came up with the correct answer. That's nice. And what else? Do you have other things to point out about the experience? Yeah, so generally speaking, students were pretty competent. I mean there were 50 of them so you can't gauge all of them but the ones who were not so shy, you could tell that they were very... The things that they've learned, they were pretty good at it. And one complaint that they were saying was that they're very interested in more cutting edge research or more, let's say, fancy things that are not in books yet but they can find them in papers and they can realize it's interesting but that's about it. They don't have anyone to talk to them about so they're missing a culture and they're very curious to learn these things but unfortunately they don't have the privilege like we do to talk about those things with other people. So the school really, you think, was quite important in that regard? Yeah, they did get to see some of the advanced stuff and they were very interested in that. They kept asking for references and for problems that they can solve and for other kind of guidance so they really do want to pursue these things. And how was your experience yourself? I mean you hadn't done something of this kind before? No, so I went and well I was open to anything I wasn't expecting anything and I just realized you have to keep yourself a little flexible while teaching because there are some things that they don't understand and you need to spend more time on that and if you try to jump ahead they will not complain they will just sit there quietly so you have to slow yourself down and make sure they're following you and they do want to follow you so you're sort of obligated to slow it down but there was a lot of fun overall I mean they were very enthusiastic so that made me enthusiastic as well. That was good fun and the university of Rwanda well I was just in the campus for science and technology This is in Kigali, right? This is in Kigali, the capital and the campus itself was pretty well it was substantially bigger I would say they had all kinds of departments like MSP, physics I saw a lab electronics lab there so I couldn't go in or do anything with it I think they have unified all the universities that they had into one that is called Rwanda this is the main campus and also you weren't in this building because they were still working on some of it but there is a building that would be partly an institute that is associated to ICC that is scheduled to be inaugurated soon Yes so that was under construction they told me about it You were I think just across the street It's in the same campus it's in science and technology campus so hopefully that will be I mean that will give them an opportunity to pursue what they like more resources Thank you very much