At 2024 CIMPA Summer School: Students, researchers learn mathematical concepts underlining security of information systems.

The summer school, which was held between July 25 and 26, brought together participants from African countries in the CEMAC Sub-region, the University of Bamenda’s Cyber Security and Mathematical Science Department, and researchers from Bordeaux, France. 

It was aimed at enhancing participants’ capacity, knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts and equations which underline security of information systems in today’s technology world. 

The summer school was partially funded by CIMPA, a UNESCO Category 2 Centre of Excellence based in France with the objective of promoting research in Mathematics in developing countries.

The school on algebra, algebraic geometry and applications to information theory, had seven courses delivered by 11 lecturers. Its activities covered a wide spectrum of research topics in number theory and algebraic geometry with applications in cryptography, including: multivalent modal logic; the discrete logarithm problem over finite fields and algebraic curves; error-correcting codes; Euclidean networks; isogeny-based cryptography amongst others. 

At the closing ceremony, Prof Anatole Azebaze, Vice Dean in charge of programmes at University of Douala, said the successes recorded at the end of ten days, marked the commencement of a new corporation for mathematics students as well as researchers. 

Noting that treatment of media information has become complicated, the Vice Dean shared the view that through knowledge of cryptography that has been taught at the summer school, scientists can now filter information that is published and who has access to them. 

To the Director of CIMPA, Prof Christophe Ritzenthaler, mathematical science has a place in the fight for cyber security as it is the foundation of all devices.

"Behind all the devices that you have nowadays; phones, computers bank cards, passport, are like very sophisticated mathematics. In order to be able to defend sufficiently cyber security, you will need to be able to understand these mathematics. One of our teachers, who presented at this summer school, was the one who was able to use very sophisticated mathematics to attack and completely destroy one of the proposals that was reaching last level of acceptance. So, you see there is no disconnection between cyber security pure mathematics and the others. They really go along, so we need to develop them together," he said. 

Prof Ritzenthaler commended the strides the University of Bamenda is making to address the issue of information systems security in Cameroon. 

“I think that some students who came are from the University Bamenda’s master’s programme that Emmanuel Fouotsa is heading. They have been able to learn new concepts with CIMPA and I see potentials and I hope they will make progress in research,” noted.

The students, after ten days of training, were handed attestations. One of them, Yang Cynthia, from the University of Bamenda, told reporters that she chose mathematics as a field of study because she aspires to become a cyber-security expert.

“Knowing how to secure privacy we need to know mathematics before being able to apply concepts in cyber security. This summer school has helped me understand certain things which were only taught at PhD level," she said.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3186 of Thursday August 01, 2024