By Isaac Akugizibwe

KIU, Main Campus - The two-day conference held at the Iddi Basajjabalaba Memorial Library began at 10 am on Monday 6th February 2023, and will continue through Tuesday 7th February 2023. The topic of this conference is International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics and Mathematical Modeling.

Over 100 persons attended Day One including international mathematical gurus like the Keynote Speaker Prof. O. D Makinde and the Chief Guest Prof.Paul Edward T. Mugambe among others who made a very high-profile team of facilitators.

Assoc. Prof.Janice Busingye, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Finance and Administration stood in for the Vice-Chancellor Prof.Mouhammad Mpezamihigo and led the University administrators who graced the workshop. She read the vice chancellor’s welcoming speech in which he commended the School of Mathematics And Computing (SOMAC) for organizing this conference.

‘’This is an extraordinary initiative, this conference offers an avenue for interaction with academicians, researchers, and many stakeholders in the industry, “he said.

The vice chancellor also acknowledged the importance of mathematics in daily life and its contribution towards economic development processes.

“Mathematics plays a great role in our daily lives, I anticipate a period in which Maths will be used to stimulate various economic development processes,” he added.

The guest of honour of this workshop was a renowned Mathematician Prof. Paul Edward T. Mugambe, the founding Chairperson of the Uganda Mathematical Society and President of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences (UNAS). He emphasized the role of Mathematics in development sciences.

“Mathematics is there to support development sciences and the process of development sciences is illustrated by the concept of math and mathematical problems,’’ he noted.

Prof.Mugambi also highlighted the need to improve the performance of Ugandan students in Mathematics. He said that whereas boys have improved over the years, women and girls are yet to shine despite a great improvement in recent years.

“The history of Mathematics is full of terrible stories of what women have suffered in trying to learn Mathematics but in Uganda, the challenge used to affect both the boys and girls and we discovered that the problem was the teachers. The teachers were not well trained, something that we are addressing gradually, “ he added.

The Keynote Speaker of the conference, Prof. O. D Makinde urged students and staff to embrace further training and research to advance their knowledge of computing and Mathematics, especially in engineering and biological systems.

“Note that the availability of sophisticated software packages and computers cannot replace adequate training and knowledge in engineering and biological systems,” he said

“All computing power and software packages available today are just tools and tools have meaning only in the hands of masters,” he added.

The conference is also being attended by mathematics gurus from various parts of Africa, as well as KIU students and staff majorly from the School of Mathematics and Computing.