RUSH hour in Nairobi can be a nightmare. “Most motorists don’t follow traffic rules and small inconveniences like a minor traffic accident or even a sudden downpour can cause delays of up to an hour,” says John Kimani, a small business owner in the Kenyan capital.

A text message service launched this month should help. Twende Twende (Swahili for “Let’s go, let’s go”) provides motorists with updates on traffic conditions and advises on alternative routes. The system was developed by Nairobi-based IBM Research Africa, the firm’s first research laboratory in Africa.

Finding a reliable source of traffic information was the first challenge. Cities in developed countries have vast networks of traffic cameras, but Nairobi has just 36, operated by local internet service provider, Access Kenya. IBM Research Africa’s chief scientist, Uyi Stewart, used this camera data coupled with an image-enhancing algorithm to identify individual vehicles and their velocity. Next, he borrowed an inference algorithm from IBM’s Tokyo research lab and set about fine-tuning it to work in Nairobi. “Driving patterns are very different in Africa,” says Stewart.

The adapted algorithm extrapolates traffic conditions on the 98 per cent of Nairobi’s streets not covered by cameras. “If we have two isolated parallel streets with a single connecting street, and we know the ingress and egress numbers for cars on each of the parallel streets, we can estimate how many cars are taking a street connecting them,” he says.

This algorithm is the basis of Twende Twende. To use it, motorists send a free text message that says where they are and where they want to go. In return, they receive a message with traffic conditions or a route recommendation.

“Motorists send the service a message that says where they are and they receive a traffic update”

Carlo Ratti of the SENSEable City Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes that crowd-sourced travel apps will be more effective in the long run. But these require smartphones that come with built in GPS, and more than 88 per cent of Kenyans still use basic handsets without GPS capability.

Stewart wants as many people as possible to use Twende Twende, as this helps the algorithm to improve its recommendations over time. “The more they use it, the more the system learns, the better it gets,” he says.

The opening of IBM’s first lab in Africa is a pivotal moment, says chief scientist Uyi Stewart – and researchers of the African diaspora should be part of it

Why did IBM open a research lab in Africa?
Africa has an abundance of natural resources, a rising middle class, a deep penetration of mobile phones and, in another 20 years, it will have the largest concentration of young people on Earth. This continent is about to explode economically.

What does the lab mean for science in Africa?
When I left Nigeria 25 years ago, I was looking to do world-class science. When I returned after graduating from the University of Cambridge, it was frustrating. The infrastructure still wasn’t there to do science. So I left again. There are smart people in Africa, but the infrastructure and the resources haven’t been there. The lab is a catalyst. It will enable Africans to do science in Africa for Africa.

Do you see this as a pivotal moment?
We are at a tipping point. Work at the universities in sub-Saharan Africa is mainly theoretical. We are bringing an industrial, commercial lab that can combine fundamental research with applied research. When that combination of practice and theory begins to lead to commercially viable innovation, it shows people that it is possible. And if you know the African psyche, once you show them it is possible you cannot stop that train.

Konza Techno City, the “silicon savannah”, is being built south of Nairobi in Kenya. Was this a factor in opening the lab nearby?
It was a factor, but there are hubs of innovation springing up across Africa. We want to be here and enable these things to happen in a practical way.

Your lab will be a centre for cognitive computing. Why focus that research here?
The widespread use of mobile phones in Africa gives us the opportunity to collect data in unprecedented ways. And cognitive computing is about crunching data to help computer systems do what they can’t right now, which is to learn how to handle surprises, how to handle problems that are not in the initial database.

In the lead-up to the lab’s opening, initial research has been under way for a year. What have you been up to in that time?
We have worked on traffic solutions, models and algorithms to help us understand the state of groundwater in Kenya, how to better understand the business model that underlies agriculture, and the ecosystem surrounding agriculture.

We have also started work in energy, created a database to measure the cancer burden in Nairobi and looked at how first responders can do a better job when a crisis arises. I can go on.

What impact will the recent terrorist attack in Nairobi have on this embryonic tech scene?
It’s too soon to tell. We are in a volatile situation right now. But here in Nairobi, it’s business as usual. I was in New York when 9/11 happened and we picked up the pieces and we moved on.

You successfully recruited many African-diaspora scientists. How did you go about it?
We just said, there’s a big, positive transformation going on in Africa. Do you want to be part of that?

This article appeared in print under the headline “In to Africa”

Psychologist Greg Feist is trying to find out what drives scientific curiosity, from ways of thinking to personality types

You are championing a new discipline: the psychology of science. What exactly is this?
It’s the study of the thought and behaviour of scientists, but it also includes the implicit science done by non-scientists – so, for instance, children and infants who are thinking scientifically, trying to figure out the world and developing cognitive conceptual models of how the world works.

What areas interest you and what discoveries have you made in this field?
My area is personality. I look at the personality characteristics and qualities that distinguish scientists from non-scientists.

The personality characteristic that really stands out for predicting scientific interest is openness to experience: how willing and interested someone is to try new things, to explore, to break out of their habits. Open people get bored with routine. Another thing I’ve found is that social scientists tend to be higher in extroversion whereas physical scientists tend to be a bit more introverted.

I understand that certain people – Jewish people, for example – are more likely than average to become scientists. Why?
I was brought up Catholic and I married a Jewish woman. I spoke to my wife’s rabbi and asked him this question. He said that in Judaism there is no hierarchy. No one person who has more access to the “truth” than anyone else. And there is a healthy tradition of debate. That way of critical thinking and debate is more congruent with the scientific attitude than Catholicism, say, which is based on dogma and hierarchy.

In the US, only 2 per cent of the population is Jewish, yet about 30 per cent of the members of the National Academy of Science and 30 per cent of the Nobel prize recipients are from a Jewish background. That’s no coincidence.

What other areas of the psychology of science are ripe for research?
A couple of graduate students and I have started investigating if there is evidence that any kind of mental disorder is associated with scientific thought and behaviour. The general answer is no. In fact, most disorders seem to be screened out to a greater extent in the sciences than in the arts.

Have psychologists looked into the issue of how objective the scientific process really is?
żěè¶ĚĘÓƵs are human. They’re not perfectly objective and rational, but the scientific method tries to limit that as much as possible by having repeatable, observable, empirical methods to minimise the subjective element. The more we understand about the psychology of scientists the more we can mitigate the effect of cognitive bias.

How will this new discipline benefit science?
One of the things it will do is shed light on how and when people become interested in science. And why do some kids, who started out with an interest in science, then leave it? In the US it’s a pretty big deal to discover what is lacking in our training and development of young scientists.

We have evolved traits that will lead to humanity’s extinction, says Christian de Duve – so we must learn to overcome them

We are the most successful species on the planet, but you think we will ultimately pay the price for this success. Why?

The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction.

You think that has worked against us. How?

Because it has no foresight. Natural selection has resulted in traits such as group selfishness being coded in our genes. These were useful to our ancestors under the conditions in which they lived, but have become noxious to us today. What would help us preserve our natural resources are genetic traits that let us sacrifice the present for the sake of the future. You need wisdom to sacrifice something that is immediately useful or advantageous for the sake of something that will be important in the future. Natural selection doesn’t do that; it looks only at what is happening today. It doesn’t care about your grandchildren or grandchildren’s grandchildren.

You call this short-sightedness “original sin”. Why did you pick this terminology?

I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It’s an image. I am not acting as an exegete – I don’t interpret scripture.

How can humanity overcome this “original sin”?

We must act against natural selection and actively oppose some of our key genetic traits.

One solution you propose is population control, but isn’t this ethically dubious?

It is a simple matter of figures. If you want this planet to continue being habitable for everyone that lives here, you have to limit the number of inhabitants. Hunters do it by killing off the old or sick animals in a herd, but I don’t think that’s a very ethical way of limiting the population. So what remains? Birth control. We have access to practical, ethical and scientifically established methods of birth control. So I think that is the most ethical way to reduce our population.

You also advocate giving more power to women. Why?

Speaking as a biologist, I think women are less aggressive than men, and they play a larger role in the early education of the young and helping them overcome their genetic heirloom.

Are you optimistic about humankind’s future?

I’m cautiously optimistic – very cautiously. I try to be optimistic because I prefer to give a message of hope to young people, to say: you can do something about it. But in the present, there is not much evidence that this is happening.