Science

My keynote speech at the UoM Research Week 2022

9 November 2022 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

The opening of the University of Mauritius 2022 Research Week was on 7 November and I made a keynote speech on that day. The other keynote speakers were Aruna Radhakeesoon, Sudhamo Lal, Viv Padayatchy and Paramasivum Vyapoory.

The theme of my keynote speech was “SDGs and Innovation for the Educational Technologies sector in Mauritius”. I had been invited by the Centre for Innovative and Lifelong Learning (CILL) of UoM.

I started with the Mauritian context. We want the country to be green (e.g. moving to 60% of renewable energy from the 27% we are today), (fully) inclusive and rich (high-income) in eight years and this requires everyone to chip in.

Problems are immensely complex now and academics are the kind of people with the proper mental aptitudes to comprehend them and provide solutions to them.

But they need to form multidisciplinary teams as any complex problem tend to be multi-faceted. Furthermore, the typical academic (I was one!) tend to do research by creating small toy solutions. These are not scalable in general and are not useful when solutions need to be found for the whole country.

Academics have this wonderful opportunity to think bigger and really contribute to the development of the country.

One of the things that academics can do is to help make sense of the Sustainable Development Goals Framework of the United Nations. These are not only 17 terms but also detailed explanations of each of the 17 SDGs, events being organised, a lot of publications containing best practices and current news.

Academics are the ones who can take this enormous amount of information and condense it in such a way for policy makers to be able to make good decisions. Academics (with their bright students) can be an essential layer in the advisory system of Government (but also for the private sector and civil society).

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has adopted a new Strategic Plan for 2022-2025 which relies on 3 major directions of change: building resilience (following COVID-19), making sure not to leave anyone behind (I did mention that we are killing our Einsteins every year by neglecting poor neighbourhoods…) and this requires structural transformation (especially in education and in governance).

UNDP has also identified 3 major enablers to help in providing solutions: digitalisation, innovation and development financing. Development financing is very important given that Mauritius is considered to be a (relatively) rich country and that we will need to stop relying on outside money for development (as they can stop coming anytime).

The population is ageing and our workforce is not yet ready for the jobs of the future. We need more and better people(ware). We need to train our young (and not young) people properly. We need to bring back the diaspora and incite foreigners to come. One key element is to have better knowledge transfer mechanisms. Everyone learning should be able to learn from experts in the field and not only in class.

We need people who are good in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). But these hard skills are not enough. To solve complex problems, we need people who are also good in soft skills such as creative thinking, communication, being artistic, etc.

The question is how to do create a critical mass of such people: good in hard skills and soft skills. Good at listening. Good at understanding. Good at sharing. And being artistic enough to know what is really important.

This is where Educational Technologies can help.

Schools were invented when factory workers were needed. Today we need knowledge workers and it makes sense to have personalised learning. I dream of a system where the 1.3 millions of Mauritians and Rodriguans can learn different things at different paces.

Another aspect is lifelong learning. The world is changing fast and people need to constantly adapt. Upskilling and reskilling are part and parcel of our lives today and this is not yet reflected in our education system.

YouTube is competing with academics and the latter need to fight for attention. Learning at the university needs to become more enjoyable for the learner.

And, finally, we need to make sure not to leave anyone behind. The University of Mauritius need to understand that it is a key institution of the country with a formidable mandate: identify and amplify the very best among the population. The university needs to move “outside” its Réduit campus.

And I ended by saying that the contribution of academics counts (a lot). Together, we can build a new version of Mauritius, a better one.

[A few days later, I would read an article on Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who believed we should define ourselves less by our work, and more by our leisure activities. As from now, if people ask, I’ll them them I do music and photography…]

An experiment to use dried leaves to curb soil erosion in Seychelles

8 November 2022 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Petite Anse Kerlan, Praslin. Photo: Wikipedia.

This blog post was written by me, Dr Victorin Laboudallon (Founder of Terrestrial Restoration Action Society Seychelles), Dr Elvina Henriette (Programme Coordinator, Terrestrial Restoration Action Society Seychelles) and Bernadette Dogley (National UN Community Volunteer, UNDP Mauritius and Seychelles Accelerator Lab)

Praslin is the second largest island (38.5 km2) of Seychelles, lying 44 km northeast of Mahé and having a small population of around 7,500 people. Hill-slopes are frequent on the island and, consequently, soil erosion is prevalent there. This topography also exists in Rodrigues and in some parts of Mauritius.

On 5 December 2019, on the occasion of the World Soil Day, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proclaimed that soil erosion must be stopped to save our future. Soil can rightly be considered as a treasure which hosts a quarter of the planet’s biodiversity and provides about 95% of the food that human societies consume. According to the FAO, soil erosion affects soil health and productivity, decreases agricultural productivity, degrades ecosystem functions and amplifies hydrogeological risk, such as landslides or floods. It can also cause significant losses in biodiversity.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of soil has become even more obvious across the islands as the cultivation of vegetables and fruits has proved an essential component for food security. With the war in Ukraine and the disruptions in food provisioning happening worldwide, it is absolutely crucial for soils to be preserved to ensure the availability of fruits and vegetables.

Photo: Terrestrial Restoration Action Society Seychelles (TRASS)

Experimenting on a solution to prevent soil erosion

The UNDP Mauritius and Seychelles Accelerator Lab has engaged conversations with the Terrestrial Restoration Action Society Seychelles (TRASS), a local NGO which aims at replanting trees in areas affected by soil erosion and forest fires, and ensures that 15,000 endemic plants are planted every year.

In the scope of its activities, TRASS has recently come with the idea of using dried palm leaves as natural protective barriers to curb soil erosion on the slopes of Praslin. Through a collaboration with the UNDP Mauritius and Seychelles Accelerator Lab and the Seychelles Parks and Gardens Authority (SPGA), the NGO will now participate in an experiment which could prove valuable not only for Seychelles, but also for Mauritius and Rodrigues.

The experiment

5,000 palm leaves, especially dried “latanier” leaves, were collected by TRASS and the SPGA in the National Park, Fond Boffay Praslin, from 19 to 23 September 2022 for the experiment. Additionally, wooden poles were cut from plant species considered as invasive alien species in Seychelles to be used in the process.

Another requirement for the experiment was to ensure that it could apply to moderately steep and very steep slopes. In this respect, two patches of land with the same kind of soil and level of exposure to rain and sunlight have been identified for each type of slope at Pasquiere and Pointe Chevalier. The setup of the trials started with a training session with TRASS and SPGA staff on the 27 and 29 September.

Setting up of the soil erosion plots

Microplots of 1m x 2m to 2m x 4m are currently being prepared with a catch-pit at the bottom end of the plot, lined with thick black plastic at the bottom to catch the sediment. Palm leaf barriers are being built in one of the two plots for each type of incline and each barrier will be at 1m interval. The second plot will not be protected with dried palm leaves (this is the reference / control plot).

Each plot will be bordered by solid strips of wood or palm leaf to prevent water from getting in from the outside. At the bottom of the plot there will be a catch-pit of 1m width and 0.7-1m deep depending on the site conditions to accommodate sediment during heavy rainfall.

The two plots of land will be left exposed to the weather and regular measurements of soil erosion will be made. The height of the soil from each plot will be measured every month. At the end of the experiment, the soil will be removed, air dried on plastic sheets for 3 days and then weighted. From these measurements, the central hypothesis will be tested.

During the experiment, in addition to palm leaves, other plant materials will be tested such as cocoplum (Chrysobalanus icaco), wild tamarin (Leucaena leucocephala), bamboo (Bambusa sp.), etc.

After the setting up of trials, the patches of land will be monitored during a minimum of two months, depending on whether rain falls abundantly in Praslin or not. After the monitoring, enough data will be available for thorough analysis and reporting.

What next?

If the experiment works well in Praslin, it would be interesting to replicate it in Rodrigues, which has a similar topography as Praslin. However, the experimentation team will have to manage some dissimilarities as the leaves used in Seychelles may not be available in Rodrigues, where the amount of rain also differs. The experiment could also be extended to some places in Mauritius which are prone to soil erosion.

Seychelles, Mauritius and Rodrigues also suffer from a common beach erosion problem. It might therefore be also useful to identify natural protective barriers for the coastal regions of these islands.

This blog was written with the contributions of Mrs Vicky Athanase, Project Manager, (TRASS); Mrs Jeanna Stravens, Research and Monitoring Officer, (TRASS); and Mr. Allen Cedras, Chief Executive Officer at the Seychelles Parks and Gardens Authority (SPGA).

System design is dealing with complexity

2 November 2022 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

*“Engineering the illusion of simplicity” in Grady Booch’s book “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications”*.

All simple problems have essentially been solved. What remain are complex problems, with thousand of movable parts and very difficult to satisfy end-users. Consequently, creating (and maintaining) software to solve these complex problems has become incredibly hard…

I have to admit that things were easier when I started learning and practising software engineering in the 1990s. Thirty years later, teaching, learning and doing software development, based on sound engineering and system design principles, are not easy and need courage and energy.

This being said, I am happy to share this formidable course / article with all of you who want to take the challenge: System Design: The complete course by Karan Pratap Singh.

*Karan Pratap Singh is a Software Engineer in San Francisco. Previously, he worked in Washington D.C., London and New Delhi.*

As I always say, I am a Computer Scientist but I don’t like the term “Computer Science”. What I do is neither about computers (in the same way that surgery is not about the scalpel) nor is a science (as a science describes some part of reality). Rather, I prefer the term “Informatique” (in French) or “Informatics” which say that what is important is the flow of information.

But, maybe, there is another way to look at “Informatics”: it is about dealing with complexity.

For example, let’s say that you need to build a “system” which NEEDS to work 24/7. This obligatorily means that the system needs to have redundancy (one computer might fail) and needs some kind of load balancing (to which computer to assign the work to be done?) and, probably, some synchronisation issue to deal with. In practice, there will be 100s of other aspects to take care of if one wants to build a fully functional system.

Hence, the importance of this fantastic “System Design” course.

Go through the course topic by topic. Discuss with people who are already conversant in them. Read articles online. Rinse and repeat.

After some weeks (or months), you will become a much better system designer. And, most importantly, you will be the one with the knowledge and skills to provide software solutions to the complex problems which real people are facing.

Enjoy (and don’t hesitate to ask me questions if there is something you don’t understand). I’ll try to answer ?