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00:00Hello and welcome to the first edition of Globe Watch 2025 with me Charles Ebune-Ed from the
00:20Ambassadorial Hall of the Ministry of External Relations in Yaoundé, Cameroon. 15 days from
00:27Yaoundé, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the next president of the United States of
00:32America. It will be the same day one of the world's largest gatherings will be
00:37taking place in the Swiss city of Davos. I'm talking about the Davos Economic Forum
00:43where world leaders gather to discuss problems facing the world. Amongst them
00:47are scientists which are almost eight million of them in the world today and
00:52one of them is my guest today. Consider the world's outstanding and best
00:57mathematician today. Professor Abdon Atangana teaches in the Free State
01:02University in South Africa and is one of Cameroon's touring personalities amongst
01:08others of Cameroonian origin like Kilian Mbappe, Francis Nganyu and you can name the
01:14rest. With him we discuss the place of mathematics in the development of
01:19societies. Professor Abdon Atangana, thank you very much. Happy New Year and welcome to
01:35Globe Watch. Thank you also for having me. Thank you for the viewer and I'm glad to be
01:41here for the first time. You were born in a legal formal in the center region of
01:46Cameroon. You did your secondary education locally before heading to the
01:52University of Yaoundo One. First, establish your passion for mathematics to me.
01:58It was when I was in primary school. I noticed that most of our formula of course that
02:06naturally mathematics was easy for me. But now when I was in high school I noticed that
02:13all the formula were named after people from the west. And I used to ask myself the
02:18following question. Does that mean nobody from Africa has contributed to
02:22mathematics because we had Pythagoras theorem, we have Thales, we have Koshi, we have all
02:28those formula. But I did not see the name of an African person and that for me I was not
02:35going to school just to pass. I was going to school so that one day I should also
02:39make a mark. That is the reason why I passed all my time, you know, trying to
02:43understand what exists already and also to see what is missing and where can I
02:49come in for contribution. So basically you are looking for an African space in the
02:55world of mathematics, one of the world's leading areas of science for development
03:01and we will come into the details in a moment. You studied in the University of
03:05here on the one and to broaden that space for your Africality, you went to South
03:09Africa. Why was the choice of South Africa? You should have gone to France or
03:13Greece where some of the greatest mathematicians, Thales and others you
03:17just named emanated from.
03:19Yes, first of all we have to understand that mathematics is
03:22everywhere. The only one, we have great mathematicians and I will call it our
03:27mathematical, you know, curriculum here in, in Africa in Cameroon is very strong.
03:33That's why one Cameroonian they go anywhere they are number one. Even when you have 12
03:37over 20 here, you go to anywhere in the world you will be one of the best. And what
03:43happened is that I grew up a little bit, it was very difficult for me even to go to the
03:51university. I used to go on foot from here to, from Mangye to Ngoikele. And sometimes I
03:58used to pass three days without eating. And when I was doing my second, third year, I received a letter
04:07from somebody saying that I belong to their family. And when I went there, they told me
04:14that from now day, your father is Dr. PM Jenge. And Papa Pierre who is, was also working here in, in
04:21Minirex. I think that is very well known as the ambassador of Cameroon in Japan now. He's the one who
04:27came and told me that from now day, your misery is finished. So he's the one who decided to first send me to
04:34Canada. As I was going to Canada. I got admission there. And for the first time I was in love, I met a lady. She's from Tico. She's a doctor in chemistry, Dr. Ernestine. And I wanted to travel with her because I do not want to have too much time to go there and look for ladies.
04:56The power of women. Yes. So I wanted to travel with her. And when we, we got the admission for Canada, they told us to pay heavy school fees. And somebody told Dr. PM Jenge that no, South Africa is good. Then we decided to go to South Africa. And when I went there, I was speaking only French. So I had to go there and learn English by myself. That is how I found myself in South Africa.
05:24In South Africa, typically an Anglo-Saxon country, you decided to study or you enrolled at the Free State University, Blue Fontaine in South Africa. You obtained your PhD in mathematical sciences with focus on applied mathematics and theory. Why that choice?
05:45No, just to understand the reason why. To be honest, the way we have been taught mathematics is just to, you know, to understand formula, to prove theorem, abstract mathematics. And that is not what other people are doing.
06:01So when I was doing my master, it was, I was mixing pure and applied mathematics. And when I finished my PhD, I had a problem.
06:11Pure mathematics, what some may call here when you are in Cameroon secondary high school, it's probably further mathematics, something of that nature.
06:17No, no. In this level, it's not that type of pure mathematics, like algebra, like graph theory. That is what we call pure mathematics, where you cannot see a direct application.
06:26Okay.
06:27So when I went there, I was solving a problem. What was my problem? I assume that you have an aquifer. The aquifer is a place where it is a void, where water is traveling.
06:40And it's very important. In many developed countries, people use that water as drinking water, so groundwater. And my problem was what? My problem was to build a mathematical model that will express the movement of that water to the geological formation by taking into account things like fractures, so heterogeneity of the media.
07:01Then I finished my master, and I got distinction. And somebody who was working at the Institute for Groundwater told me that what you solve is very important for us. Why can you not come now at the Institute for Groundwater to do your PhD with me, such that we can use your mathematical tool and, you know, what we see in the field and put them together and see if we can solve the problem.
07:24So that is how I diverted from pure mathematics to applied mathematics. So, and to be honest, when I went to applied mathematics, I understood mathematics more.
07:36Now I understand why God asked us, you know, to control the nature, because controlling the nature is true formula. So when I went there, I was able to, here is the theorem, is it really applicable? How can we apply it? That is how I find myself now doing applied mathematics.
07:53You said that you wanted names or a name of an African named after a theorem. There are so many theories in mathematics. You have the game theory. You have the mathematical theory in communication, for example, for the job that I do, especially when you studied the Palo Alto School of Communication.
08:12But you increased your knowledge in that and you had so many prizes already that made you singular in the world. What are some of those key prizes you have won already?
08:22Uh, I started by being nominated African, um, fellow of African Academy of Science, affiliated. That means when we were under 40. And I was the first in, in mathematics in Africa.
08:35Uh, then later on, I got what they call a better price. It is an international price that has been given by Egyptians.
08:44Uh huh. Then after that, one of my, uh, you know, uh, uh, that I can say I was proud for the first time of myself, is that there is web of science.
08:53science because when you see professor is not just a title it is your contribution i was also
08:59elected fellow of world academy of science under the age of 40 and that i was very glad because
09:05they are not i'm not sure there are more than two like that in the world and i become also
09:12the first person to get the the twice it is the word of the world academy of science
09:20award of mathematics so i got that award also alongside unesco that is not unesco okay so
09:27so last year now i got the unesco award of stem that was given by to me in france paris and that
09:37for the promotion of you know stem in in the world and my contribution in mathematics i was representing
09:45africa and i was the first mathematician to win it i was uh invited in united states new york
09:51where all black american ceo from all over america people even come from europe because we have some
09:58black uh african that are mayor in different countries there in europe they came it was a very
10:05big ceremony where they were honoring me so they call it black star award so i got that black star
10:11award in november so in simple english there is a mathematical theory named after an african today
10:19and by conclusion your dream has been achieved right yes now let's look at what mathematics can do for the
10:31the development of countries i take your home country cameroon for example apply mathematics where um
10:41you are more of an expert has to do with how you apply mathematical knowledge to subjects like biology
10:47chemistry physics communication and all the rest um let me just name you three areas of cameroon's
10:55development challenges the energy sector electricity infrastructure routes in particular and the
11:05construction domain if you had to input solutions to some of those areas how does your mathematical
11:14knowledge come come in uh you know that is a very interesting question although you zoom it in
11:20according to what we view as problem but me i can deviate a bit you have the authority to do that
11:27because i can see in cameroon the most uh immediate thing that we have to do in our country and is to
11:36to slow down the pollution and when you go everywhere here i have to be honest we see that bridge everywhere
11:44the president in 2015 signed cameroon for the paris climate change deal and by my understanding is that
11:52you are more concerned with environmental challenges right yes go ahead yes so uh we we also have although
11:59we have water in cameroon but i think that cameroon also have problem of drinking water uh pure portable
12:06water so you understand that energy water is part of it yes yes so um uh in general to to make it short for
12:14everybody to understand the reason of mathematics how it can be used to develop the country it is about
12:20observation you observe a problem you analyze that problem you convert it into mathematical model
12:28that is what we use as a model when you had kovi here we build a model that model will be useful
12:34in term of prediction to tell the country in three days we are going to have 10 people that are going to die
12:40that we discuss with the government and the governor taking decision that what do we think that we can
12:45put in your model for the curve to go down we can speak about vaccine we can speak for example about
12:51lockdown we can speak about you know lockdown as a restriction yeah all the restriction we put those
12:57those elements again into the mathematical model and we tell the president that after three days if we
13:02do this we do this we do this this is the number of people that will die so it is about prediction and
13:09as i was talking about pollution we can tell the government for someone who put garbage here
13:16he goes into the ground he travel when he travel people it may be interacting with a specific river
13:24and people in the in a specific village are drinking that that water that is why it make many people to be
13:30sick but how do we avoid this thing how do we maybe use model to make sure that we can first of all tell
13:39people that by grouping something here this is what is going to happen so that is how we use mathematics
13:44to solve problem let me just hang on on the issue of garbage disposal and pollution which you said of
13:50course there are roughly four million of plastics which are not needed in the cameronian space um the
13:56the minister of environment is trying to solve some of those issues the garbage disposal across the country
14:01you are talking about its connection with health uh especially cancer development and all orders
14:08uh um do you have a project in that direction uh in that direction is very simple management we don't need to
14:15build a mathematical model for that uh i was discussing with my wife for example she she told me that
14:22that we can maybe use what is happening in south africa maybe in rwanda it's just our mindset our
14:30the public because yes cleanliness to say that i cannot hygiene and sanitation yes to everybody
14:36it should be martial law yes in rwanda that is what actually happens it should be actually a martial law
14:43because it's not everything that has to be solved uh using democracy yes we we yes to be honest
14:50because we want to tell our young people that you cannot develop your country if you are not healthy
14:57and for you to be healthy your environment should be clean and that is not the government that have
15:01to do it it is it has to start from us citizens to say that i'm not going to use a banana and throw it
15:06somewhere so it's not a matter of mathematics now the mathematics can only tell them the effect of what
15:13people are doing by dropping you know rubbish everywhere to say that the pollution the air pollution
15:18groundwater pollution those are the things that cause uh people to to you know to to have disease in in
15:23our our country you also heard an association of african mathematicians at the level of the association
15:30what is the intention what is the goal uh the african society for industrial and applied mathematics sure
15:38okay you know uh we noticed that in enough in africa in general it is theory only that they teach to our
15:45kid and uh most people don't want to do mathematics anymore because they ask themselves what is the use
15:51uh when you are a mathematician where will you work but in the developing country is what i was saying
15:57now that we use those days they just used to take x minus w is equals to y and one plus one is two and
16:05water so it sounded like more of a routine right yes okay but for example if you are talking about
16:11the derivative you tell the kid uh like derivative premier it is used for velocity that velocity now
16:20can be used to evaluate the speed of car you talk about like the reverse second you tell the kid that
16:26for this you are speaking about acceleration so if you take derivative you add acceleration what model can
16:32you construct how useful will that model be in a contest of cameroon for example to to to to to
16:39predict the movement of pollution air pollution or to to speak for example about the interaction of
16:45animal let me tell you something i have a project now with namibia where we are solving a practical
16:50problem a company came from europe russia they want to extract uranium in in namibia but now the question
16:59is by extracting uranium are they going to destroy the ecosystem so what we do now is to build a
17:05mathematical model they give us the data that they have they give they tell us exactly how they are
17:09going to implement that that that extraction so we as mathematicians are we will use our mathematical
17:19formula to build a model when we build that model we will take into account the farmer that are there around
17:24and what is the the what the the farmer produce as food what is the importance of uh you know the the
17:33food security in namibia groundwater also so we take all those things into account and we build a model
17:40we solve the model and we simulate it we show the we do the analysis of the the the solution we are we
17:48are now able to tell the government that this deal is not going to be good for your country
17:52so the pro in fact even went to court and the court people are waiting for our result to when i hear
17:59you talk of mathematics in such simple ways it encourages young people for a generation to study
18:05mathematics as contrary to what happened to some of us many years ago but i understand the essence is to
18:12make life easier cheaper affordable to communities there is one area in africa of public concern road
18:20construction for example what they say to construct roads in africa is very expensive are you trying
18:27to build models modeling to see and compare and contrast the cost of road constructions in
18:32many african countries and make them cheaper when you compare the material and the essence of what
18:36is using it yeah that that can be done using control but in general when we are talking about
18:41road it is network this has to do with mathematical engineering yes yes but but it is network
18:47it is what we call in a in mathematics graph theory uh so uh as i said about prediction when we are
18:54constructing the road what is our aim do we want just to put something there after two days it disappear
19:00or are we actually uh making sure that this road will be here for 20 or 30 years you know before before
19:08we start maintaining it so those are disability studies yes yes so uh if they we say that we are going to it's
19:15it's going to be very if they say okay proof i've done do something let us tell us how we can do a road
19:22and we make sure that we go to with the standard of europe we say this is a road that we are building
19:27we don't have a big budget what are we going to do is that we make sure that this road should be there
19:32for 30 years and we put everything in place quality control when the road is being built all the
19:39equations are taken into consideration yes quality control who will make sure that he tests that this
19:46road that we are put is going to be there for 20 years i was in before we control i was in rwanda
19:51so for a conference as i was going to the airport the driver told me prove do you know why this place
19:57is like this like they remove they destroy the road so ask why he told me that the idea of our
20:04government was that this world will be here for 25 years and we gave money to a specific company to
20:11build our route when they build the road now we notice that it's going to be there for 20 years the
20:16government asked that man that company to break everything and use their own money and make sure that
20:23that route is auto standard of les gens comme vous qui sont au sommet de la planète qui sont les
20:32camerounais naturellement lorsque vous arrivez à ce stade vous dit la nationalité camerounaise je ne la
20:38détient plus est-ce que vous avez encore le passeport bleu je suis je vais dis ça de manière mathématique je
20:49suis fractionnellement mathématique camerounais c'est-à-dire je ne sais pas comment je peux dire la fraction ça ça ça prend
20:58tous l'histoire d'ici à là donc ça prend tout ce qui est ici je suis fractionnellement camerounais et je
21:06ne va pas changer ma nationalité je suis fier d'être camerounais ça circule dans mon sang beaucoup de
21:13pays m'ont dit est-ce que tu ne peux pas prendre notre nationalité j'ai dit non le cameroune c'est un
21:17grand pays et c'est un grand pays et je crois que un jour là vous est là nous allons aussi arriver il
21:24faudrait que les camerounais restent chez eux vous pratiquez le patriotisme mathématique oui donc je
21:32suis camerounais vous êtes un jeune qui a donc réussi dans le monde entier ce qu'on peut considérer les
21:40meilleurs exemples de la destination camerounaise en 2020 ou bien 2023 ou bien 2020 le président éviter
21:47la jeunesse camerounais d'aller dans le monde conquérir revenu développer les pays quel est le
21:54message que vous avez pour la jeunesse camerounaise en particulier la jeunesse camerounaise le destin du
22:00cameroun est entre nous c'est à dire c'est ce que nous voulons voir le cameroun est demain on doit
22:06travailler sur ça aujourd'hui je comprends que de temps en temps les jeunes sont fâchés les gens les
22:11jeunes des choses mais qu'est-ce que nous même en tant que je ne pouvons contribuer à notre pays comment
22:15nous pouvons faire pour que le pays est un succès donc pour moi je pense que il faut travailler du
22:23moi j'ai travaillé du j'ai travaillé sérieusement du dans la vie dans ma vie pour arriver là où je
22:29suis arrivé je ne suis pas encore je ne suis pas encore au sommet c'est dieu qui est au sommet il
22:33faut être humble je vais continuer à travailler parce que l'afrique a besoin de beaucoup de formules
22:39l'afrique a besoin aussi d'émerger beaucoup beaucoup de gens disent que tel théorème tel théorème
22:44a été aussi introduit par un africain donc pour si vous dites que je suis arrivé non je ne suis pas
22:50encore arrivé parce que un homme sage ne regarde pas ce qu'il a déjà fait c'est qui vous impose
22:54les 10 ans oui un homme sage ne regarde pas ce qu'il a il a déjà fait il regarde nous devant et
22:59devant moi il ya un ensemble vide que je dois remplir c'est pour cela que je dois continuer de
23:04créer crédit c'est pour cela que j'ai commencé le mouvement de l'association africaine des mathématiques
23:11industrielles appliquées pour dire aux jeunes que le développement c'est pas la science c'est bien
23:17sûr que le sport nous donne l'émotion salut pas que l'autisme émotionnel mais c'est pour un temps
23:24mais quand on a bâti en un pays par la science sur le patriotisme quand vous voyez un français dit
23:31quelqu'un de l'angleterre dit que je suis fier d'être anglais parce qu'il parle de l'eau ville
23:39et parler de tous ces gens là qui ont contribué c'est de manière voilà il aime shakespeare voilà
23:46dont ils sont fiers dix ce sont nos personnes dont aussi en afrique les trucs comme les titres
23:52les trucs comme ça ça nous ça nous dévie on a on a on doit arriver quelque part parce que l'afrique
24:00était un temple de savoie avant les gens venaient de partout et qu'est ce qui se passait maintenant
24:05nous quittons l'afrique pour aller en europe alors que le temple du savon était en afrique vous vous
24:11inscrivez dans la logique d'un ouvrage qui a été publié à les années par le professeur jean
24:16emmanuel pundi un collectif je sais que vous connaissez le professeur pundi et l'ouvrage est
24:21intitulé repenser le développement de l'afrique de l'afrique vous êtes dans cette logique oui supposons
24:28que l'europe n'existait pas est-ce qu'on allait atteindre quelque chose du ciel on ne doit pas
24:34attendre quelque chose du sol bien quelque chose de l'europe c'est pour cela que partout je vais
24:37en afrique je me bats pour que les jeunes africains sachent que notre changement le développement de
24:44notre continent qui est notre pays parce que et que camounais sont les divisions de l'occident on dit
24:50qu'ils sont camounais parce que ce sont eux qui sont venus ils ont divisé c'était un pays donc le
24:55développement de notre pays l'afrique c'est un clonement on ne doit pas attendre les européens moi je
24:59vais jamais attendre les européens donc je dis que les jeunes africains doivent se rassembler unis avec
25:05une seule pensée le développement de l'afrique you have gone through so many schools of life you claim to
25:14have come from one of the country's poorest homes until your destiny changed at one moment normally
25:20in the african society when you come from a poorer family the idea is that you don't engage into
25:25sciences more so mathematics because it cost a lot of finances so it's easier to do literature to do
25:32history and somehow do you think there is something that you missed in life that you feel and that you
25:39have found the mathematical solution today for those who come after you to learn ah i don't know i'm not
25:47too sure uh the only place i can say that maybe i fell in life was maybe languages where i neglected them
26:00uh because you can see that my english not that outstanding my phrase not that outstanding it's
26:06fantastic yes so uh i neglected languages and for me i'm not saying that it's mathematics i have to
26:12solve that for me what i'm saying here is that we as african people we have to develop a language that
26:19will be uh that will be used by all african people so that we should reduce the power of uh the colonial
26:26master in us you know we are discussing here we are discussing in english and that is not our our
26:32language that is why in we went to tanzania this year to to to make sure to discuss about that issue
26:39can we have a language in africa that all of us with swahili and and lingala yes really because uh
26:46everybody uh even on on on the website of uh asiam we we we also put swahili because it was in english
26:55french no this is not this is not us so we put swahili so that is one area that i can say that i
27:01felt in in life and uh maybe i don't know you are trying the equation is still yet to be sorted out yes
27:10we conclude the interview uh professor abdon atana uh mathematician considered today to be the best
27:19in the world i can see that you are so much attached to your um african and cameronian roots and especially
27:26language so if i say masuk mina in the window you still understand some of it and we talk okay thank
27:33so thank you very much indeed for being my guest thank you
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