Present:

Diallo Boye, Diouma Kobor, Bertrand Tchanche, Bjorn von der Heyden, Claire Lee, Clara Nellist, David Dodoo-Arhin, Fairouz Malek, Farida Fassi, Ghita Rahal, Gihan Kamel, Iyabo Usman, Joele Mira, Lawrence Norris, Lerothodi Leeuw, Marie Clémentime Nibamureke, Maria Moreno Llacer, Nieldane Stodart, Obinna Abah, Peter Jenni, Robinson Musembi, Shaaban Khalil, Simon Connell, Sonia Haddad, Stephen Avery, Ulrich Goerlach, and Kétévi A. Assamagan

Agenda:

https://indico.cern.ch/event/1113871/

Summary:

1. We shared some news and information, discussed the Community Planning Meeting (CPM) on March 7-11, 2022, surveys and submission of LOI. Some details may be found on the agenda page here, https://indico.cern.ch/event/1113871/. At the CPM, there will be sessions dedicated to ASFAP working groups. Group conveners will be free to arrange these sessions. We will send details later. The invited talks at the CPM should be broad in scope to include not just personal research but as well the status of the field in Africa. We discussed the survey organized by the Young Physicists Forum (YPF). It was recommended to improve some of the survey questions to reduce potential bias in some answers. In addition to the upcoming (mini)workshops mentioned on the agenda page, the YPF is preparing a series of meetings in February with other group conveners to understand and promote young physicists participation.

We will engage inactive conveners to discuss how to best support them to become active or to replace them.

2. Brief status reports from working groups:

• Light Sources WG: Gihan Kamel is alone; this group needs to be re-structured. Gihan is preparing a  survey to be released soon. A workshop is in preparation for the time scale of April or May.
• Medical Physics WG: Stephen Avery mentioned that another workshop is in preparation; a doodle will be circulated to identify a date. There will be a meeting of Global Health Catalysts in early February; he will prepare a presentation on ASFAP there, https://www.globalhealthcatalystsummit.org/.
• Young Physicists Forum: Diallo Boye presented a status report on YPF as mentioned in item 1) above.
• Computing & 4IR WG: Ghita Rahal mentioned the difficulty / slowness in LOI. Some LOI were promised. It was suggested that in case of promised LOI, we could start the LOI submission process with just a title and author(s); this may encourage the authors to complete the LOI through reminders. Farida Fassi said that she had encouraged folks in Morocco to submit LOI for Computing; she suggested that Simon Connell does same for South Africa.
• Astrophysics & Cosmology:  Lerothodi (Lero) Leeuw mentioned that they had already defined their subgroups and are now moving to the next stage of subgroup activities. They are further discussing LOI submissions from individuals or subgroups.
• Earth Science WG: Bjorn on der Hayden met with the STC and engaged with his co-conveners to get this group going. Bjorn mentioned that a convener would like to resign; we will discuss replacement.
• Community Engagement WG: Progress is slow; difficulty for conveners to meet; nevertheless, they managed to meet last Wednesday. There is a discussion among the conveners to define the scope of this group. The process will involve engaging other groups (physics education, young physicists, women in physics, etc.) to understand overlaps and other areas of engagements not covered in the other groups. Senegal is becoming the chair of the African Union (AU), and Arame BOYE-FAYE (co-convener of Community Engagement) is working to establish ASFAP contact with AU through Senegal.
• Nuclear Physics WG: Iyabo Usman reported that they have had 3 meetings. The challenge has been to reach out to colleagues from non-English speaking African countries. If you know such people in nuclear physics, please let Iyabo and her co-conveners know. There is a need to establish a database of contact persons in nuclear physics. This group is planning a (mini)workshop on February 8.
• Atomic and Molecular Physics WG: Obinna Abah mentioned that they had a successful workshop on January 10 and they are planning a follow up in February. They are arranging 5-6 subgroups and exploring connections with the YPF and the Optics & Photonics WG.
• Energy WG: Diouma Kobor and Robinson Musembi informed us this group will organize a workshop on February 25; they are developing the agenda and inviting speakers. They will reach out the STC for help with Indico and Zoom.
• Condensed Matter and Materials Physics WG: Sonia Haddad mentioned that they had a successful workshop a month ago. They set up a survey where they encouraged workshop participants to fill out the survey to receive a certificate of participation. They received about 111 responses. They are organizing these responses into LOI topics and encouraging the relevant respondents to develop these topics into LOI. They are  planning another workshop where they will encourage participants to write LOI during the workshop.
• Instrumentation & Detectors: This is cross-cutting group through many other groups. Ulrich Goerlach mentioned that they would like to attend the meetings of the other WG to understand and collect topics that would be relevant for Instrumentation & Detectors. To be aware of the upcoming meetings, we encourage everyone to update the google calendar of meetings—everyone using this calendar will then be aware and informed of meetings to come.
• Observers: Lawrence Norris has been following the biophysics WG. He mentioned that there will be a biophysics week in March; ASFAP biophysics will be discussed. Later, there will be an event about biophysics & industry where connection with ASFAP should be further developed. The biophysics WG has been having regular monthly meetings.
• Physics Education WG: Bertrand Tchanche informed us that this group will resume meetings in February.