Co-operative Education Program
Overview
In the Academic year, 2015/2016, AIMS introduced the pilot Cooperative Education Program. The Co-op program is built upon a model of work-integrated learning. The Cooperative Education Master’s program is a structured method of combining formal instruction with scheduled, alternative segments of practical work experience in appropriate industry. The rationale for the program is to increase the transition to meaningful employment for AIMS Scholars by enriching their learning experience with acquisition of competencies relevant to the workplace and Industry.
The Co-op students undergo 18 months of training: 10 months of academic/course work (given by international visiting lecturers, backed by permanent tutors) and 6 to 8 months of internship with AIMS industry partners, after which they complete their research dissertations. AIMS Co-op scholars are chosen based on their background in Mathematics and related sciences, leadership potential and commitment to give-back to their communities, among other criteria.
2018 – 2020 Cohort
During the Academic Years 2018-20, the AIMS-Cameroon Cooperative Master Programme in Industrial Mathematics graduated 9 students (3 females, 33%) from 4 countries. One achieved an overall distinction. Their projects ranged from
- Stochastic modelling for outstanding claims and customer churn prediction at Zenithe Insurance
- Digitization and Data Analysis of Building Permit Procedures and Time Series Data for Birth Prediction at Limbe City Council ;
- Building an AI chatbot and a collaboration platform for Douala Chamber of Commerce ;
- Studying the effect of malaria disease and HIV infection at Limbe Regional Hospital ;
- Improving data collection and quality at the Kenya Meteorological Service ;
- Applying reinforcement learning and neural network techniques to telecommunications problems at the IVADO consortium.
2019 – 2021 Cohort
In 2019-21, the graduates were 11 (3 females, 27%) from 5 countries. Again three (one female) achieved an overall distinction. They were taught by 24 lecturers hailing from 8 countries and 3 continents. They worked on :
- Improving data collection and quality at the Ghana Meteorological Agency ;
- Vehicle Tracking and Digital Marketing at ZUOIX, Limbe ;
- Developing web applications and data visualization tools at Philjohn Tech. in Douala ;
- Developing web applications and data visualization tools at the Climate Application and Prediction Center for Central Africa.
