Call for a virtual scientific African seminar on HIV/AIDS research
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For the younger African generations, there is a need to design sus-
tainable ways to spark interest for reading the scientific literature
on HIV/Aids even in the absence of a sufficient number of graduate
research stipends.
Under the following URL, you will find the description of a virtual
seminar concept in which a free solution is suggested (in English and
French):
http://citation.thread.free.fr/prevges/ChemAIDS.html
There are certainly plenty of scientists around the world who would
be ready to share some of their spare time to host during a fortnight
a small virtual seminar around a bibliography on a given topic re-
lated to HIV/Aids. Such simple activities are likely to motivate
younger generations in Africa to read about HIV/Aids and to get a
better understanding of the issues surrounding the pandemic.
This concept of giving extra-time has worked wonderfully for many
free computer projects (the most famous of which is Linux). There is
no reason why free participation shouldn't work for scientific vir-
tual seminars. The most difficult part remains to get people to meet
and get started. Public local or mobile libraries in Africa could
play an important role by advertising free virtual seminars as an at-
tractive endeavour for young generations aged between 15-30 years
old.
Perhaps Internet "meet-the-science" points should be set-up: e.g.
php3-servers running automatic applications capable of realising the
registration tasks for virtual seminars and of launching them. But
more needs to be done in offering adequate certificates for scien-
tists to master the technique of facilitating online collaborative
seminars especially using e-mails as this is the medium to reach a
large audience in Africa.
Hope this helps.
Christian Labadie
mailto:CLabadie@t-online.de
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