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Herald, Kingston, Jamaica, March 11-17, 2001.
JAMAICA'S health care sector could get a "shot in the arm" when Nigerian Dr. Philip Emeagwali, one of the great minds of the information age speaks at a fund raising banquet by the Jamaica Medical Foundation (JMF) March 24, at the Hilton Kingston Hotel. This comes as the Foundation seeks to develop greater awareness of the role played by computer technology in the detection and treatment of various illnesses and health disorders, and of the need for Jamaica's health sector to avail itself of the latest technology. Oliver Jones, chairman of the Jamaica Medical Foundation, believes in the power of knowledge and advice in shaping Jamaica's medical technology future. He also believes that the man with the answers is one whom the media dubs the "Bill Gates of Africa." Says Jones: "We hope that bringing Dr. Emeagwali to Jamaica will take us one step closer to bridging the gap between information technology and the health care sector in terms of the wealth of knowledge and advice that he will no doubt share with us." Available information shows that Dr Emeagwali's achievement is no mean feat and should not be taken lightly, with his plan to bring fibre optics technology to 41 points on Africa's coastline. He has been described by former US President Bill Clinton, as one of the great minds of the information age. His discoveries read like a "Ripley's Believe It OR Not" TV feature. He mirrors many of Bill Gates' own challenges as a youngster, not least because both were high school dropouts and self-taught, and the fact that their inventions benefitted mankind. But unlike Bill Gates, Dr. Emeagwali is not the wealthiest man today and still encourages people to e-mail him at philip@emeagwali.com. The pioneer in massively parallel computing, Dr Emeagwali created what is called the Connection Machine in 1989. This parallel connection of 65,000 computers created the fastest computer on earth, which performed 3.1 billion calculations per second. Dr Emeagwali's parallel computers have been used to explain how sperms swim, how polluted ground water flows, how volcanic eruptions occur, and how to recover larger and safer quantities of petroleum. His computations have also been instrumental in meteorologist's ability to forecast long-term global warming patterns. He is only a satisfied man as he once told New African. He said, "I like to work on problems that are important to society because I get satisfaction." "Emeagwali's celebrity also brought him hate and racism from white supremacist," reported Britain's One World News service.
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