Meet the Nigerian engineer who makes drones for one of the world’s most powerful armies.

Dr Osatohanmwen Osemwengie makes drones for the U.S. army --- Ventures Africa

Over the years, Nigerians have been impacting the world with their highly-improvised technical skills.

From the likes of Jude O. Nkama, who became the first African to be appointed as a judge in New Jersey, USA; the super-talented Nigerian man who designed the 2014 Chevrolet Volt; the Nigerian engineer who built the fastest carbureted front-wheel car in the world all the way to the 26-year-old Nigerian who is now the highest paid robotics engineer in the world, Nigerians have made their country proud with these wonderful undertakings.

But what probably makes them even more proud is the feat achieved by Dr Osatohanmwen Osemwengie, who builds drones for the most powerful army in the world

.The Nigerian-born genius who hails from Edo state, left the country in the early 1980s and after many feats in Robotics Engineering, he has become an integral member of the American armed forces. His drones are used by the United States Army for surveillance to gather important information, as well as take out terrorist camps.

The successful academic, who has bagged seven masters degrees and three doctorate degrees, served as an administrator at the College of Education, Benin, where he was named Educator of the Year for securing funding used to design and implement pre-service teacher education programs. 




Osemwengie, who made a name at the 2008 world robotics championship, after having coached robotics and been a software engineering mentor to robotic teams, also works with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and has been successful in sending drones to different planets, including Mars and Jupiter.“NASA’s Next Mars Rover Progresses toward 2020 launch. 

Many years ago I worked on prototype of Mars Curiosity Rover that has roam Mars for more than 4 years and counting,” Osato said of his work with NASA

“We are now working on the next rover set to launch in 2020”, he was quoted by The Cable recently.

The expert owns a drones company – Ubiquity Interface Inc., of which he is the CEO – and works with a team of foreign engineers as well as his brother, only identified as Ken, who is a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army.

Osemwengie, in February 2017, released his latest research, which has been submitted to the US Army entitled “QuantumDB API for Database Security and Integrity Enhancements”.

“QuantumDB is a database system required for implementation of secured database management system by the Army and Department of Defense within non-clustered environment in tactical space where computing and storage resources are limited,” the research abstract that was cited by The Cable stated.

In 2011, the family man, who allegedly likes to keep a low profile, founded the Open Robotics University, described as one of the world’s first tuition-free, engineering degree-granting university that “allows people to further exercise their talents and expand their knowledge into all fields related to engineering”.

Before travelling to the United States in the 1980s, Osemwengie was already making a name in his home country. Aside from being named Educator of the Year by the College of Education, Benin City, he served as Administrator of the Columbus City School System from 1992 to 2011, where he not only coordinated staff and student recruitment but also developed programmes to increase staff and student retention, according to Ventures Africa.

In Malawi, drones deliver HIV test kits to and from remote parts of the country while in other African countries like South Africa and Namibia, drones are used to stop poaching, track illegal mine activities and for agricultural purposes.

For health-care professionals, the use of drones has enormous benefits, specifically its ability to reach areas that lack proper infrastructure to deliver lifesaving drugs and other important items.

The technology has saved lives in cases of emergencies and due to its central stocking, medical doctors state that it has curtailed the issue of the short shelf life of whole blood, which made planning what types and amounts to keep on hand at each hospital difficult.

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Nigerian genius at NASA first black woman to earn a PhD in aerospace engineering

    Wendy Okolo is the first black woman to earn PhD in aerospace engineering. Pic credit: US Black Engineer

Wendy Okolo initially felt like an impostor when she worked as a summer researcher from 2010 to 2012 at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Material Command.

The mission of the AFRL is to discover, develop, and integrate affordable war-fighting technologies for air and space forces.

Working in the Control Design and Analysis Branch of the AFRL – Wright Patterson Air Force Base – Okolo was part of the team that flew the world’s fastest manned aircraft, which flew from coast to coast in 67 minutes.

Okolo, then a graduate student, at first felt she had no place working with such a great team.

“I was like I am sure these guys are so smart, what am I going to bring in,” she said.

She found an error in the code in the systems and she fixed it and “that fixed the impostor syndrome for a while,” she was quoted by The Cable.

Today, the 30-year-old is an aeronautics and space administration genius. She works as an aerospace research engineer at the Ames Research Center, a major research centre for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Silicon Valley.

Born to a family of six in southeastern Nigeria, Okolo was only 26 when she became the first black woman to get a doctorate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.

She received her BSc and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from the university in 2010 and 2015 respectively.

 Wendy Okolo. Pic credit: NASA

During this period, she interned at Lockheed Martin working on NASA’s Orion spacecraft and first worked in the requirements management office in systems engineering before moving to the Hatch Mechanisms team in mechanical engineering.

Okolo later worked as a summer researcher at AFRL and has since taken off her career at NASA, a United States agency responsible for the civilian space program, as well as, aeronautics and aerospace research.

Having done research in the area of aircraft formation flight as a fuel-saving method of flight, Okolo has written several publications and is currently a special emphasis programs manager in the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA’s Ames Research Center.

She is working on the System-Wide Safety (SWS) project, where she has led the task of predicting GPS faults in drones, according to The Cable. The talented engineer is further working on a Space Technology Mission Directorate Early Career Initiative (STMD-ECI) project at the Ames Research Center.

Under this role, she “leads the controls team to develop unconventional control techniques for deployable vehicles, to enable precision landing and improve maneuverability during the entry, descent, and landing phases of spaceflight.”

Okolo has also worked with Langley Research Center in Virginia to investigate flight data and facilitate data exchange across and within NASA centres.

The STMD-ECI project is a $2.5 million-dollar project that she proposed and won as part of a six-member early- career scientist team.

Okolo, who has also won the BEYA Global Competitiveness Conference award for the most promising engineer in the United States government, wants other young girls to take an active interest in science technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Okolo awarded as Most Promising Engineer in the U.S. Pic credit: The Cable

Over the years, Nigerians have been impacting the world with their highly-improvised technical skills.

From the likes of Osatohanmwen Osemwengie, who builds drones for the U.S. Army ; the super-talented Nigerian man who designed the 2014 Chevrolet Volt; the Nigerian engineer who built the fastest carbureted front-wheel car in the world all the way to the 26-year-old Nigerian who is now the highest paid robotics engineer in the world, Nigerians have made their country proud with these wonderful undertakings.

courtesy face2face Africa

Nigerian genius who broke 50 year old record in Japan does it again by obtaining MSc

                Courtesy Sugar

The Nigeria's Super Genius, Ufot Ekong, who broke a 50-year record in Japan, has successfully received his Master Degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (Honors) from Japanese University. He was supported by his pretty wife and child -as he received the award yesterday.

The Akwa Ibom indigene achieved the highest grades at Tokai University in Tokyo, Japan for 50 years and solved a maths puzzle in his first semester that was unsolvable 30 years ago. Ufot Ekong, also achieved a first class degree in electrical engineering and scored the best marks at the university since 1965....

Throughout his university career Mr Ekong won six awards for academic excellence. 

The mathematician worked two jobs alongside his studies to pay his way as a student.

DONALD TRUMP APPOINTS NIGERIAN ADEBAYO OGUNLESI INTO HIS ECONOMIC ADVISORY TEAM..

Courtessy Vanguard / African Celebs..

Meet the Nigerian who led Gatwick Airport Acquisition!  A Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi,  has acquired the London Gatwick Airport as the new owner. The Gatwick deal is a £1.455 billion agreement with BAA Airports Limited. Adebayo Ogunlesi, then 56, is the chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an independent investment fund based in New York City with worldwide stake in infrastructure assets,is  the new owner of the London Gatwick Airport. 

The Nigerian who led Gatwick Airport Acquisition attended prestigious King’s College, Lagos. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School. Ogunlesi, whose father was the first Nigerian-born medical professor, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and then earned law and business degrees from Harvard.  Ogunlesi has lived in New York for 20 years and is active in volunteer work. But he also cultivates his ties to Africa. He informally advises the Nigerian government on privatisation.

Prior to his current role, he was executive vice chairman and chief client officer of Credit Suisse, based in New York. He previously served as a member of Credit Suisse’s Executive Board and Management Council and chaired the Chairman’s Board. Previously, he was the Global Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1983, Ogunlesi has advised clients on strategic transactions and financings in a broad range of industries and has worked on transactions in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Ogunlesi is very much in touch with developments in his homeland Africa. In Nigeria, as an informal adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Ogunlesi has been known to advise successive governments on fiscal policies, economic development and strategic management…. Amongst other things has been involved in…AFC, IFC it was AFC that led Africa’s participation in the $750 million syndicated lending facility to develop Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Field, which is deemed one of West Africa’s largest deep-water offshore developments in over a decade.

ESTHER OKADE ...THE 10 YEAR OLD NIGERIAN MATH PRODIGY.......

Courtesy CNN

At first glance Esther Okade seems like a normal 10-year-old. She loves dressing up as Elsa from "Frozen," playing with Barbie dolls and going to the park or shopping.

But what makes the British-Nigerian youngster stand out is the fact that she's also a university undergraduate.

Esther, from Walsall, an industrial town in the UK's West Midlands region, is one of the country's youngest college freshmen.

The talented 10-year-old enrolled at the Open University, a UK-based distance learning college, in January and is already top of the class, having recently scored 100% in a recent exam.

"It's so interesting. It has the type of maths I love. It's real maths -- theories, complex numbers, all that type of stuff," she giggles. "It was super easy. My mum taught me in a nice way."

She adds: "I want to (finish the course) in two years. Then I'm going to do my PhD in financial maths when I'm 13. I want to have my own bank by the time I'm 15 because I like numbers and I like people and banking is a great way to help people."

And in case people think her parents have pushed her into starting university early, Esther emphatically disagrees.

"I actually wanted to start when I was seven. But my mum was like, "you're too young, calm down." After three years of begging, mother Efe finally agreed to explore the idea.

A marvelous mathematical mind

Esther has always jumped ahead of her peers. She sat her first Math GSCE exam, a British high school qualification, at Ounsdale High School in Wolverhampton at just six, where she received a C-grade. A year later, she outdid herself and got the A-grade she wanted. Then last year she scored a B-grade when she sat the Math A-level exam.

Esther's mother noticed her daughter's flair for figures shortly after she began homeschooling her at the age of three. Initially, Esther's parents had enrolled her in a private school but after a few short weeks, the pair began noticing changes in the usually-vibrant youngster.

Efe says: "One day we were coming back home and she burst out in tears and she said 'I don't ever want to go back to that school -- they don't even let me talk!'

"In the UK, you don't have to start school until you are five. Education is not compulsory until that age so I thought OK, we'll be doing little things at home until then. Maybe by the time she's five she will change her mind."

Efe started by teaching basic number skills but Esther was miles ahead. By four, her natural aptitude for maths had seen the eager student move on to algebra and quadratic equations.

And Esther isn't the only maths prodigy in the family. Her younger brother Isaiah, 6, will soon be sitting his first A-level exam in June.

A philanthropic family

Not content with breaking barriers to attend college at just 10 years old, Esther is also writing a series of math workbooks for children called "Yummy Yummy Algebra."

"It starts at a beginner level -- that's volume one. But then there will be volume two, and volume three, and then volume four. But I've only written the first one.

"As long as you can add or subtract, you'll be able to do it. I want to show other children they are special," she says.

Meanwhile, Esther's parents are also trying to trail blaze their own educational journey back in Nigeria.

The couple have set up a foundation and are in the process of building a nursery and primary school in Nigeria's Delta region (where the family are from). Named "Shakespeare's Academy," they hope to open the school's doors in September.

The proposed curriculum will have all the usual subjects such as English, languages, math and science, as well as more unconventional additions including morality and ethics, public speaking, entrepreneurship and etiquette. The couple say they want to emulate the teaching methods that worked for their children rather than focus on one way of learning.

"Some children learn very well with kinesthetics where they learn with their hands -- when they draw they remember things. Some children have extremely creative imaginations. Instead of trying to make children learn one way, you teach them based on their learning style," explains Efe.

The educational facility will have a capacity of 2,000 to 2,500 students with up to 30% of students being local children offered scholarships to attend.

Efe says: "On one hand, billions of dollars worth of crude oil is pumped out from that region on a monthly basis and yet the poverty rate of the indigenous community is astronomical."

While Paul adds: "(The region has) poor quality of nursery and primary education. So by the time the children get secondary education they haven't got a clue. They haven't developed their core skills.

"The school is designed to give children an aim so they can study for something, not just for the sake of acquiring certifications. There is an end goal."

Jelani Aliyu – General Motor’s Senior Creative Designer Credited For The Design Of The Chevy Volt

 

There is no doubt the Chevy Volt comes with superior technology and design to make it not only eco-friendly but also quite a nice set of wheels to “roll down the streets in”. The average automobile fan probably knows in-depth details on the Volt, but should you ask any of them if they know Jelani Aliyu. You will probably get a clueless blank stare.

Jelani Aliyu is the creative mind behind the Chevrolet Volt. Aliyu comes from Sokoto State of Northern Nigeria working as the Senior Creative Designer of the US General Motors. He is the man who designed the Chevrolet Volt which has become one of the most admired American cars globally.
Mr. Aliyu beams with so much pride when he describes his homeland: “I was born and grew up in Nigeria, Land of the Niger crocodile, The Baobab tree, And the midday sun, Nigeria. Where smiles are free like the bright blue sky And the beautiful stars of the night”. Aliyu can be said to have had a fascinating childhood whereby he grew up with wild imaginations on various types of World Class Automobile and Industry Designing. For as far back into his childhood as he can remember, Aliyu always wanted to become a “crème de la crème” car designer. Few professionals can say that they lived up to their fascinating childhood dreams and fantasy, but Mr. Aliyu seem to be one of the very few.
Aliyu first undertook architectural studies, which is as close to car designing as one can get in Nigeria. He later enrolled to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan where he undertook a course in Transportation Design. After graduating, Mr. Aliyu received a job at General Motors. He worked at the GM Tech Center for 3 years until when he sent to Germany on an international assignment at Opel which lasted for about 2 years. After his assignment in Germany, Aliyu returned to the GM Tech Center; this was the point in his career where he came up with the design for the Chevrolet Volt Electric Car: a prototype vehicle that was is not only GM’s pride, but also has a significant importance in terms of championing eco-system conservation.
The magnitude of the imagination that Jelani Aliyu placed in this car design cannot be appreciated enough. As attested by the magnificent appearance, speed and performance of this car. To underscore this fact, Jelani Aliyu was quoted saying: “We must never underestimate the amazing power of human imagination, the ability to envision a dramatically positive and dynamic future. Every great city, every monument, every historic feat, as it stands for all the world to see, was once pure thought, pure imagination acted upon and brought into reality. To imagine is to dream, to dream is to tune in to the ever fascinating possibilities of the future. And when we do dream, it must be big, because dream small is to totally underestimate the amazing capabilities that lie within each and every one of us”.
  courtesy Life and Times

 

 

John Uzo Ogbu was a Nigerian-American anthropologist and professor known for his theories on observed phenomena involving race and intelligence

John Uzo Ogbu (May 9, 1939 – 20 August 2003) was a Nigerian-American anthropologist and professor known for his theories on observed phenomena involving race and intelligence, especially how race and ethnic differences played out in educational and economic achievement. He suggested that being a "caste-like minority" affects motivation and achievement, depressing IQ scores. He also concluded that some students did poorly because high achievement was considered "acting white" among their peers. Ogbu was also involved in the 1996 controversy surrounding the use of African American Vernacular English in public schools in Oakland, California. The 2000 book Eminent Educators: Studies in Intellectual Influence focused on him as one of "four intellectual giants of the 20th century."

Born in the village of Umudome in Ebonyi State, Ogbu attended Hope Waddell Training Institute and Methodist Teachers' Training College. He enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary, but soon transferred to the University of California, Berkeley to study anthropology, earning his baccalaureate in 1965, his master's degree in 1969, and his Ph.D. in 1971. He taught at UC Berkeley from 1970 until his death.

Involuntary minorities

Ogbu argues that cultural differences alone cannot account for differences in minority education, since some minority communities do quite well and others do not. In addition, he observes that in some cases groups of people of the same race but located in different countries manifested different ability and/or achievement levels according to some measures.

Ogbu points out that there are two kinds of differences between cultures. There are primary differences, which existed before cultures came into contact with each other. Then, there are secondary differences, which come into existence when two cultures interact with each other. He says that many of these secondary differences are created by subordinate groups in opposition to the cultural references of the dominant group.

In the U.S. context, Ogbu concluded that among U.S. Americans there are "voluntary minorities" (groups of immigrants who chose to come to the United States, and their descendants) versus "involuntary" or "caste-like" minorities (descendants of groups of persons who found themselves in the United States, or under United States jurisdiction, against their will). Voluntary minorities (e.g. Korean-Americans) tend to form nonoppositional secondary differences with the dominant culture. On the other hand, involuntary minorities (e.g. Native Americans) tend to form oppositional secondary differences with the dominant culture. However, both voluntary nonoppositional cultural subjects and involuntary oppositional cultural subjects are required to adhere to dominant (white) American cultural frames of reference if they want to acquire upward social mobility.

In Minority Education and Caste (1978), Ogbu argued that involuntary minorities often adopted an oppositional identity to the mainstream culture in response to a glass ceiling imposed or maintained by white society on the job-success of their parents and others in their communities. Therefore, he reasoned, some non-whites "failed to observe the link between educational achievement and access to jobs." 

Often, the oppositional culture/identity created by the involuntary minority involves the incorporation of attitudes, behaviors, and speech styles that are stigmatized by the dominant group, which, of course, precludes those who adopt the manifestations of the oppositional culture from external success in the dominant culture. When immigrant minorities (voluntary minorities) acquire the language of the dominant culture, it is seen as an addition to the first language (nonoppositional primary differences). However, when nonimmigrant minorities (involuntary minorities) acquire the language of the dominant culture, it is the negation of their oppositional culture, and thus their cultural reality.

Acting white

In 1986 Signithia Fordham co-authored, along with Ogbu, a study which concluded that some African American students in a Washington, D.C., high school did not live up to their academic potential because of the fear of being accused of "acting white." Ogbu further echoed these findings in his 2003 book Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement (which summarized his nine-month research on the educational gap between white and African-American students in the Shaker Heights City School District located in the upscale Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio). He concluded that these students' cultural attitudes hindered their own academic achievement and that these attitudes are too often neglected by parents, educators and/or policymakers.

Though the study's conclusions gained a popular foothold and have been espoused by such noted figures as Bill Cosby, a later study obtained different results. In 2003, Karolyn Tyson, a sociologist, and William Darity Jr, an economist, both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, directed an 18 month study at eleven North Carolina schools which found that white and black students have essentially the same attitudes about scholastic achievement; students in both groups want to succeed in school and show higher levels of self-esteem when they do better in school. The results of this study have been published in a book by Stanford sociologist Prudence Carter^[3]

A 2006 study titled An Empirical Analysis of "Acting White" by Roland G. Fryer, Jr. at Harvard University and Paul Torelli suggested that the phenomenon has a statistically significant effect on black student achievement, but only in certain school contexts. In public schools with high interracial contact and among high achieving students, there was an effect, but there was little or no effect in predominantly black or private schools.^[4]

African American Vernacular English

Main article: African American Vernacular English

In 1996, Ogbu played a prominent role in the debate about the utility of African American Vernacular English. As a member of a task force on African American education in Oakland, California he noted that linguists (e.g.,William Labov, John Rickford, Walt Wolfram, and others) have long distinguished between the "standard" or "proper" English required in the classroom and black vernacular English spoken at home and with peers. Ogbu encouraged teachers to become familiar with and to make use of this variety (called "Ebonics" by the Oakland Unified School District) in helping speakers of African American Vernacular English acquire Standard American English in addition to their "home" variety.

He died in 2003 after suffering from a post-surgery heart attack at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center. He is survived by his wife, Marcellina Ada Ogbu, and his children Elizabeth, Nnanna, Grace, Cecilia, and Christina. He was buried in Nigeria.