Boffins for Africa
The LEAP community is exceptionally proud of Qondisa Ngxanga who has just completed a masters in mathematical finance at the prestigious African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Selected from applicants from across the continent, Qondisa displayed her LEAP roots by calling on her fellow graduates to use their considerable intellects to make Africa a better place.
Despite being a maths boffin, Qondisa is no stranger to hard work. She finished Matric at LEAP in 2005 and headed off to do a BSc in mathematics and statistics at the University of the Western Cape. After graduating with honours in computational finance in 2012, she was accepted into the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) masters programme.
AIMS was established as a partnership project of the universities of Cambridge, Cape Town, Oxford, Paris Sud XI, Stellenbosch and the Western Cape to promote mathematics and science in Africa, train talented students and teachers and build capacity for African initiatives in education, research, and technology. Students are selected from a large number of applications from all over Africa.
Showing her LEAP roots, Qondisa’s graduation ceremony speech was all about giving back. She said,
I have found my calling, it is not about how much money you can make but about what you can do to help the person next to you. If each of the 478 AIMS alumni reach out to just one child, imagine what we can achieve. Let’s make Africa a better place, I really believe that we can.”
Qondisa knows that being clever is not enough and that hard work is always part of the equation: “The future looks brighter for me but I need to work even harder, I’m looking for a job for next year as I will be ready to be in the work environment and implement all my hard work in the work space.”
