I’m David Bertsche, one of the lecturers at the 2018 African School of Physics in Namibia. This year, for the first time, the program included a professional conference (The Biennial African Conference on Fundamental Physics and Applications, ACP2018) running for five days in parallel to the regular activities. The primary goal of the conference was to attract ASP alumni to return and present on their scientific work — and additionally to expose current students to the contemporary format of scientific information exchange and debate that is the research conference.
The topics called for covered a broad range: Astroparticle physics and cosmology; Nuclear and particle physics; Event generator, detectors, simulation, statistical and data analyses; Medical and radiation physics; Renewable energies and energy efficiency; Material physics; Physics education; Physics communication; and High performance computing.
The targeted participants were also very broad, i.e., “ACP is an international and professional conference opened to physicists, physics teachers, and policy makers in education and research from all over Africa and beyond.” A total of 171 participants registered and 136 contributions were selected by the organizers. The final distribution of talks accepted by topic is shown in the the pie chart.
The conference was well received by the participants, especially the integration with the school and the forum day, which provided some diversity from the normal conference format by allowing interaction with students and policy makers. The broad nature of the conference was a challenge for some participants, who did not have the time and/or interest to participate beyond the session covering their specific research area.
One unique highlight was the conference excursion to a local wildlife preserve. And many participants took additional vacation time to explore the spectacular natural beauty that Namibia has to offer, from desert and ocean views, to herds of elephants and vast starry skies. No doubt the successful format of the conference will be carried forward to ACP2020 in Morocco.