Why scholar left high-paying job abroad to come back home

Arusha. Prof Hulda Shaidi Swai, a nanotechnology scientist at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), would probably still be teaching abroad today, had she not been in a way ‘discovered’ and convinced by her compatriots to come back home.

It was in early 2010 or thereabout that her potentials were identified by fellow scientists from Tanzania while she was making some presentations during a conference in South Africa.

Dr Hassan Mshinda, then the director general of the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (Costech), is the one who convinced her to come back home.

The former Costech chief informed her about the newly-established Nelson Mandela University in Arusha, which he believed can equally match with her qualities like other top-notch foreign academic centres.

“He told me our top scientists are greatly missed at home. Why don’t I change mind and go back home to teach and spearhead researches?” she quoted what the Costech boss hinted to her.

Shortly later, while still in South Africa, she came face to face with Prof Burton Mwamila, then the vice chancellor of the Nelson Mandela Institution. “He too spoke nicely about the institution, saying it was research intensive university with special focus on innovation. We need people like you,” that was what I was told.

It did not take time for her to make up her mind. After all, it was a good idea to start thinking of going back home after working for nearly 30 years abroad; 13 in the UK and 14 in South Africa.

By 2015, Prof Swai was at NM-AIST, an academic centre located at Tengeru in the quiet suburbs of Arusha. She began as an adjuct, an academician working without having a permanent status. Many universities hire large numbers of adjuct faculty members because they are flexible.

But for the soft-spoken Prof Hulda, her bold move to Nelson Mandela was due to her passion and great vision to impact the scientific knowledge and skills to her home country. In South Africa,, she worked as senior principal researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), one of the largest research intensive research institutions in Africa.

Upon settling at the Nelson Mandela Institution, however, she was to encounter some challenges. The students she was to groom, mentor and supervise had funding problems.

It was then that she put her spanner in the works.

She crafted a nice proposal for funding from the World Bank through a special window created by the Bretton Woods institution for higher learning institutions in Africa. She managed to acquire some $6 million from the World Bank for the establishment of the African Centre for Research, Agricultural Advancement, Teaching Excellence and Sustainability (Creates) in Food and Nutritional Security in Africa.

The centre, for which she is the director,was established through the World Bank’s African Centres of Excellence (ACE II) initiative and is one of the two such centres at the Nelson Mandela university; the other focused on water resources.

Creates’ mandate is to train and raise a critical mass of specialized and skilled human capital that can use multi-discplinary approach in tackling environment, food and nutritional challenges in Africa.

It is a five year programme that was launched in 2016. Under it also funds have been secured for the establishment of a National Pedagogical Training Institute to be coordinated by NM-AIST-Creates.

Her academic excellence transcends institutions and periods and has won her several awards.

One of it was a $7 million grant from CSIR Pan African Centre of Excellence in Applied Nanomedicine Research and Training. The grant was geared to enhance research on infectious diseases.

Her contribution to the broad field of science and innovation saw her recently elected the president of African Materials Research Society (AMRS).

She is also the nominee of the African Union’s Kwame Nkrumah Awards for Scientific Excellence (AU-KNASE) for 2018.

Prof Swai comes from one of the once famous families in the country. The first Inspector General of Police (IGP) after independence Elangwa Shaidi was one of his uncles.

She born was in 1954 in the mountainous village of Vudee in Same district, Kilimanjaro Region.

She schooled at Tambaza and Kilakala secondary schools in the 1970s and the University of Dar es Salaam where she graduated in 1980 in chemistry and statistics..

After a brief stint with the state-run corporations, including the National Development Corporation (NDC), she proceeded to the UK where she acquired he MSc at the Imperial College in 1987.

She obtained her PhD in biomaterials from Queen Mary’s College which is under the University of London in 2000.