Black
Scientists & Inventors
In the UK
In the UK
March 22nd 2013 Event
One
of the reasons Michael Williams co-authored the best-selling Black
Scientists & Inventors series of books was the apparent lack of
representation of the contributions made to science and inventions by
non-European people in school science books.
Although
the series has been received extremely well both in the UK and
internationally the representation of UK Black Scientists &
Inventors in the titles could be improved.
With
that in mind earlier on in the year he decided along with the BIS
Publications’ team to research the contributions being made by UK
based Black Scientists & Inventors. We have teamed up with The
Power Of Definition™ and Black Scientists & Inventors™ to
find these inventors and scientists and to publish our findings in a
new title we aim to release later this year. We thought March would
be a great time to announce our intentions to the public and it would
be quite fitting since the UK's International Science Week –15thto
22nd March 2013 falls in that week.
We
therefore decided to have an event on Friday 22nd March
2013 celebrating UK Black Scientists & Inventors and symposium
all at the top of their profession. As we were pressed for time the
window for promotion for the event was narrow and so leading up to
the event the registration was low by the BIS Publications standards
but then on the evening we were pleasantly surprised with the full to
the brim house, I guess It
was a case of serendipity.
I
must mention that in the past we have hosted these types of events in
central London locations such as the Science Museum, TUC and in
London universities. But on this occasion we decided to have the
event in the inner city deprived area of Tottenham. A town that has
become internationally famous for two reasons the football club
Tottenham Hotspurs and the 1980s and 2011 up risings. One of our
aims were for young people in the area to see and hear from people
just like them who have achieved amazing things outside of sport and
entertainment.
That
said the event was opened by Michael Williams co-author of the
best-selling Black Scientists & Inventors series who helped to
set the scene.
Williams
presented a audio visual animation of the Hon. Marcus Garvey speaking
on science. The quote by Marcus Garvey was “...in your homes and
everywhere possible you must teach the higher development of science
to your children; and be sure to develop a race of scientists par
excellence...”
This
audio visual piece both capture the attention of the adults and
children.
Now
that we had everyone’s attention after the audio visual piece, Mr.
Williams who was also the facilitator for the evening introduced Dr.
Donald Palmer a senior lecturer at Imperial and London School of
`Veterinary and a specialist in immunology. Dr. Palmer spoke about
science in general, his own background and also how black children
can get into a science career.
Dr. Donald Palmer listening to Dr. Eyman Osman
Then
another audio visual piece of Leroy Brown the inventor of the
electronic car jack was presented, at this stage the audience were
amazed they had no idea that someone like that existed in the UK.
Prior
to the event we received many emails suggesting although the Black
Scientists & Inventors in the UK is a great endeavour, but where
were the sisters! So I was extremely pleased when Mr Williams
introduced the next guest speaker who was Dr. Eyman Osman. This young
African woman has achieved a very high standard in her chosen field
mainly genetics with a view to making an impact not only her country
of origin- Sudan but to the rest of the world in diaspora. She is
also involved in furthering her community’s development in
education and has set up a social enterprise in her name Iman
– Faith. Dr Osman was well received.
Dr. Eyman Osman delivers her presentation.
Next
was Dr. Mark Richards of Imperial College, but he had been running
late. We were fortunate that our team always plans for the unexpected
and so our back up was a video piece of him talking about an
invention that he was working on at Imperial, again this video went
down very well with the audience.
The
final person was Sam Amalemba author of Becoming, youth leader and
mentor to many young people in Tottenham. As co-author of the new
title Black Scientists & Inventors in the UK Mr. Amalemba went on
to introduce several more UK based black scientists and inventors to
the audience via a PowerPoint presentation. It was very interactive
and again engaged both young and old.
Sam Amalemba delivers a very interactive presentation for the children.
Time
was moving on and we just had a little time left for questions and
answers. All the speakers were asked to come to the front, by this
time Dr. Richards had arrived and was asked to join the panel. As he
was not able to present earlier, Mr. Williams allowed him to open the
questions and answers session. Dr. Richards started by once again
using the Marcus Garvey quote Mr Williams opened the event with, he
then asked the audience what were their thoughts on that quote.
All
in all It was an amazing evening and all who attended gave us
fantastic and positive feedback. I would like to say thanks you to
Michael Williams for this great idea, all the speakers and most of
all the audience who attended.
By: S. Amalemba, C. Soso and M. Williams
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