In Kumasi, two physicists teach Africa's young scientists to build their own instruments

At KNUST in Kumasi, physicists Akyana Britwum and Michael Kweku Edem Donkor have launched the Ghana Photonics and Optics Laboratory. Their aim is for African researchers to build and repair their own optical instruments rather than rely on imported machines. 38 young scientists from six countries have gathered there to learn how.

That is the idea behind the Ghana Photonics and Optics Laboratory, or GPOL, which Akyana Britwum and Michael Kweku Edem Donkor founded as a hands-on space for building, teaching and maintaining light-based instruments. Too often, laboratories across the continent import expensive equipment that eventually breaks down. When it does, nobody nearby can repair it, so it sits unused. The two physicists want to break that cycle by building the skills where the instruments are used.

Britwum came to the work through solid-state physics. After finishing his PhD in 2015, he joined KNUST as a lecturer. His research has focused on low-cost optical sensing and on electronic instruments for laboratories that have little money. The laboratory grew out of the same practical conviction.

The instruments it plans to build are meant for ordinary problems. One would check whether a medicine is genuine without opening the package. Others are affordable imaging tools to diagnose glaucoma and detect jaundice in newborns. Environmental sensors would find heavy metals in soil or water within seconds. Even before its official opening, the lab received a Through-Barrier Raman Spectrometer through a partnership with the University of St Andrews. It shines light through a sealed bottle and can tell whether the medicine or alcoholic drink inside is counterfeit.

The laboratory launched together with the first NYANSAPO Photonics School for Health and Safety. NYANSAPO is an Adinkra symbol, sometimes called the wisdom knot, which stands for wisdom and ingenuity. For six days, participants work inside working laboratories. They build optical devices, operate them and analyse the data the devices produce. The global optics societies SPIE, the title sponsor, and Optica support the school, along with partners including Thorlabs, Menlo Systems, ICFO and the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing.

Outside the lab, the group's work reaches younger students too. Over the past year, the KNUST Photonics Student Chapter held outreach events in Takoradi and in Dodowa, near Accra, and left photonics kits with schools there. This year's programme includes an outreach day for pupils in Hwiremoase.

The lab will be measured by what its students can do after they leave Kumasi. The founders hope a young researcher in Kigali or Harare will one day be able to fix a broken spectrometer instead of waiting for a replacement from abroad.