Hawking Searching For Africa's Einsteins

nuke-alwin writes "Stephen Hawking has traveled to South Africa in search of Africa's Einsteins. The project will create Africa's first post-graduate center for math and physics. The British government has unfortunately decided not to back the project, which is hoping to fight poverty by identifying the kind of talent that can create wealth." Neil Turok is deeply involved as well; he was recently named to head the Perimeter Institute in Canada, whose server we brought to its knees this morning.

Comments

Re:Brain drain, ver 0.1

[the brown guy]

I'd hop on the first chance at a big corporate job in some other country. In my village in Northern India, more and more people are moving back to the village, after going to universities in Canada, the USA and England, and having become (relatively) rich. My dad is a first generation immigrant to Canada from India, and we are a middle class family, my dad drives a taxi (I know, stereotypical,) and my mom works in a bank. My dad just went back to India last month to build 4 3 story houses in our village, one for him (when he goes back) and 3 for his brothers and their families. A little money goes a long way in these impoverished regions, and not only does this stimulate the local economy with all the construction, but when I went there my dad paid for a year of broadband internet for the local school, and I am saving up for a dozen or so cheap desktop computers to bring there next time I go.
The point is that when people go back to the poor areas where they or their ancestors grew up, the feel a duty to improve the quality of life for the residents there.
The lucky few that get out, generally will try and make it easier for others to get out, and as time goes on the quality of life can only get better.