Visions for Opportunities

In the lead up to an during 2024, it needs to be made clear what opportunities there are for people to get involved. During 2024, when potentially 3,000 or more astronomers come to Africa, we also need to be prepared to put meaningful opportunities for collaboration on the table.

Status / Challenges:

We will need people across the world to promote Astronomy in Africa and 2024, in order to ensure that the GA in Africa is well attended (both physically and online) and people know more about opportunities in Africa

Actions:

  • Develop explicit mandate/mission (bulleted list of goals, small examples, etc) to attract, inform and guide potential ambassadors
  • Develop communication “packages” (slides, posters, flyers, communication material) to enable potential ambassadors to talk about the 2024 GA and other opportunities in Africa.

Potential Stakeholders:

AfAS

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • To generate the envisaged human capital we will need supervisors and co-supervisors of African students
  • Quality of supervision is also important, especially the need for supervisors to have the appropriate “soft skills” to better enable them to supervise, mentor and coach students

Actions:

  • A model for joint degrees/co-supervision etc needs to be developed and easily accessible. This may include recognition for degrees/content across borders, as well as standardisation of quality.
  • Provide skills development opportunities for supervisors including “soft skills”, cultural/sensitivity training, etc. For example, CREST has an Online Training Course for Supervisors of Doctoral Candidates at African Universities.

Potential Stakeholders:

SANSA, NASSP, University faculty

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • In order to ensure that quality science is produced on the continent, it would be important for African astronomers to interact meaningfully with the rest of the world.
  • There are also potential citizen science projects which could be adapted to increase research collaborations. See for example https://www.zooniverse.org/.

Actions:

  • Ensure attendance of African astronomers at international conferences in order to highlight research interests to potential collaborators.
  • Have a “research opportunities” component of the package for ambassadors; and ambassadors to bring back/communicate international research opportunities to African astronomers
  • Engage with citizen science platforms about projects requiring “citizens” at different education levels
  • Search for collaborative pathways and research opportunities with other research centers located in Asia, Europe, etc…

Potential Stakeholders:

…

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

Astronomy in Africa and the IAU GA2024 could be part of the UNGA77 in September 2022 presenting the opportunity for global decision-maker visibility as well as the opportunity to link astronomy to the UN SDGs and Agenda 2030, including becoming an official UN Local 2030 body. This will link the IAU GA with science diplomacy in a way never seen before.

Actions:

  • Develop a concept note for UNGA77
  • Build diplomatic links and cooperation
  • Get support of EU, AU, ITU UN Bodies AAS etc

Potential Stakeholders:

AERAP, Takalani, AfAS

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • Not all astronomy-trained individuals will work in astronomy – we need to involve the industries that will employ them – these include business, civil society, local government, schools, etc.
  • University academics are not always aware of the needs of industry

Actions:

Identify the industries that employ astronomers and develop a package of how they can come on board with 2024, either through sponsorships or some sort of partnership e.g. industry-academia skills gap training, start-up business support, data science freelancing opportunities, paid hackathons, etc.

Develop ways to turn the needs of industry into research projects at universities. Here, universities or advisors have to be aware of the needs of industry.

Potential Stakeholders:

Engage with NASSP alumni in industry

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • Professionals in education, outreach and/or development should have opportunities before, during and after the GA to engage with projects and activities across the continent.
  • Information and knowledge about Astronomy can be limited, even with some not being able to distinguish between Astronomy and pseudosciences.

Actions:

  • For physical activities, connections need to be made well in advance to ensure that itineraries are planned such that side activities are planned and carried out as part of delegates’ travel to the GA
  • All participants of the GA (physical and virtual) could be engaged in advance to contribute online education, outreach and development activities

Potential Stakeholders:

SAASTA, The Travelling Telescope, OAD, OAO, OAE

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • It could be extremely worthwhile to encourage students/teachers from schools across Africa, from all age groups, to attend the conference (physically or virtually). This could enable links between the African astronomy community and African “civilians” in their own communities
  • While there are many local education activities, there are limited pan-African opportunities for schools
  • Astronomy is not always a part of the school curriculum. A high level effort to get astronomy into schools could enhance the interest and participation in astronomy

Actions:

  • Establish a formal programme for schools participation in the General Assembly. For example, the Observatoire de Paris organises “parrainages” throughout the French metropole (Alain Doressoundiram is the point of contact)
  • Explore the potential for pan-African opportunities such as an African Astronomy Olympiad
  • Explore options to support organisations and individuals to drive the inclusion of astronomy in national school curricula across Africa

Potential Stakeholders:

Claire Flanagan, Sivuyile, NAECs

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • In the Vienna 2018 GA there were scores of volunteers from around the world who covered their own travel to the meeting but had their registration fees waived in exchange for volunteering on the organising team
  • Volunteers are not only about extra hands for the GA but also an opportunity to provide exposure and experience to the volunteers themselves

Actions:

Volunteer opportunities need to be advertised for before, during and after the GA, in order to have extra hands on the organising teams, as well as hands for education, outreach and development activities.

Potential Stakeholders:

…

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

Using the opportunity of people travelling to Cape Town, one could envisage a carefully crafted set of opportunities to visit other locations across the continent en route to/from the GA

Actions:

Identify and promote opportunities for side meetings/trips e.g. Ethiopian airlines is a cost effective way of travelling to Cape Town from Europe/Asia and comes via Addis Ababa where one could stop for a few days (at no extra cost) to visit the Entoto Observatory and Research Centre

Potential Stakeholders:

ESSTI, Alemiye

Call for proposals

Status / Challenges:

  • The global pandemic has changed the way meetings are conducted, with online and hybrid being the norm in 2021. This creates an opportunity to be creative and set new standards for effective hybrid conferencing.
  • Many large astronomy meetings are seeing factors of 2 increase in attendance when they have effective online attendance

Actions:

  • Explore innovative ways of implementing effective hybrid conferencing and build into the planning of the GA itself in order to expand and enhance participation. For example, see outcomes of The Future of Meeting Symposium held in September 2020
  • All aspects of GA planning (including this document) should assume hybrid participation

Potential Stakeholders:

Vanessa Moss/TFOM, NOC, IAU, organisers of other conferences (e.g. ADASS XXXI) that have done this

Call for proposals

© 2024 IAU General Assembly 2024 – Cape Town