Prospects of holding JINR student internships for Africa discussed in Cairo On 12 October, the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) held a meeting dedicated to organizing a joint internship for students from Egypt and South Africa as part of the Quantum Computing and Machine Learning (QCML) workshop in Cairo, Egypt. The meeting, which essentially became a pilot meeting of responsible persons of the future JINR joint school for Africa, was attended by Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Egypt at JINR, ASRT President Gina El-Feky, ASRT International Cooperation Coordinator Rana Refai, South Africa-JINR Cooperation Coordinator, Deputy Director of the iThemba LABS Cyclotron Laboratory (South Africa) Rudolph Nchodu, Director of the JINR University Center (UC) Dmitry Kamanin, and Deputy Head of the JINR International Cooperation Department Elena Badawi. Director of the JINR Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies (MLIT) Sergei Shmatov and MLIT Scientific Secretary Olga Derenovskaia also took part in the discussion as invited experts. .Internships at JINR for students from Egypt and South Africa traditionally attract a large number of young scientists from these countries, facilitate career guidance for future scientific careers, and expand the geography of JINR’s collaboration with universities and scientific organizations. The meeting participants discussed their experience in holding student internships and agreed to start preparations for the joint internship, to synchronize student selection, to conduct preparatory activities, and welcome the joint team of African students to JINR in the second half of June or early July 2026. Preliminary training for students from Egypt and South Africa will be organized as national student schools in January-February 2026, with some lectures being delivered to both groups simultaneously by lecturers from Cairo and Cape Town. Classes at the schools will follow a synchronized curriculum, utilizing local resources for workshops. The organizers see a virtual laboratory as one such tool. The period between the student schools and the students’ arrival in Dubna will be devoted to additional meetings, including for the purpose of assigning the students to projects in advance and determining future scientific supervisors. The program will be open to the possible participation of other interested African countries. The national school in South Africa will be based at the already-experienced SAINTS (Southern African Institute of Nuclear Technology and Sciences)@tlabs Physics School at iThemba LABS, while in Egypt, it will be based at universities collaborating with JINR. Further steps to organize internships will be elaborated through JINR Information Centers and the JINR University Center. “We have established strong scientific ties with iThemba LABS in the area of computing and data processing for the SPD experiment at the NICA collider. We are also looking forward to enhancing our collaboration within joint scientific projects and with representatives of Egyptian scientific organizations. The task of training qualified personnel is one of the most urgent, and we are ready to share our experience in organizing the JINR IT School to enrich both UC youth practices and JINR’s joint African internship,” MLIT Director Sergei Shmatov commented on his participation in the meeting. The QCML workshop took place in Cairo on 11–14 October 2025, bringing together scientists from Armenia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Georgia, and Russia. The event was organized by MLIT JINR and ASRT. See also: JINR and Egypt combine efforts to advance quantum computing Round table with representatives of Egyptian scientific organizations
