Africa's top scientists, policymakers and start-ups have gathered for a landmark conference aimed at stemming the continent's brain drain and encouraging governments to nurture research in fields from virology to maths.
Organisers of the first Next Einstein Forum (NEF), concluding on Thursday near Senegal's capital, Dakar, hope to reverse a situation in which Africa's brightest talent feels compelled to move abroad to work at the cutting edge of research - and earn a decent salary.
"There are more African engineers working in the United States than in Africa," organiser Thierry Zomahoun, CEO of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, told an audience drawn from more than 100 different countries.
At least 17 Einstein Forum fellows as well as young researchers from across the continent shared their innovations with top policy makers, business leaders, and academics.
One of them is Mouhamed Moustapha Fall, a Senegalese mathematician who believes that everything from the universe to the decisions fishermen take out in the ocean have an equation.
“What inspires me about Einstein was his ability to re-question everything. To try to have another way of looking at things, challenging universal truths,” he told Al Jazeera.
