African Leadership University

Launch of ALU’s Global Visiting Faculty Programme

As part of ALU’s Global Visiting Faculty Programme, ALU will be hosting two academics during the month of April to present lectures and lead seminars in their respective fields.

Dr. Carlos López Galviz from the Institute of Social Futures at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom will give a public talk titled The Past Futures of Cities: 1851-2051. His research interrogates the relationship between cities and infrastructure through the lens of ‘past futures’, namely, the ways in which we can connect past experiences and events with future plans and ideas about the environments where we will live and work.

This talk will be followed by a series of in-depth seminars for students from the 11th to the 25th of April on the topic of urbanization, its challenges, opportunities, and creative ways of studying it. The seminars will accommodate up to twenty students to help them develop their research ideas on the subject of cities and urbanization by working together on short collaborative research projects.

Dr. Jennifer Widom, Dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University in the United States will be offering ALU students her Big Data bootcamp course from April 18th to the 21st. Her course focuses on big data, machine learning, and other related topics.

The first day will be open to everyone at ALU, whereas Day 2 and Day 3 is tailored for students and faculty who have a background in basic programming. This course is ideal for engineering and computing students, as well as all students who wish to expand their knowledge and experience on the subject.

Dr. Widom is highly recognised in the field of data and information management, and is distinguished by her contributions to the field of engineering education. She tailored and taught one of Stanford’s first online courses in data management, and is currently traveling the world teaching computer science in various countries.

We are thrilled to be hosting these two distinguished academics to ALU. Dr. Galviz is equally as keen as we are about having him with us this month saying: “I am thrilled to be spending some time at ALC in Mauritius – I’m very excited to learn more about the ALU approach, and I look forward to interacting with such an amazingly bright and diverse student body!”