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Sathish Subramanian, who is from Zambia, is one of 97 new Gates scholars who arrived at Cambridge in September. He is at Darwin College studying for an MPhil in Biological Sciences at Cambridge with a focus on infectious diseases in developing countries, particularly malaria. He has already had considerable success in his research, uncovering a novel pathway by which certain parasites metabolize fatty acids which could eventually lead to the development of an anti-parasitic drug.

Sathish, who did his undergraduate degree at the ̽��ֱ�� of Pennsylvania, grew up in Lusaka, Zambia and says this has had a major impact on his studies. “Zambia, a country without wars and with democracy still has a life expectancy of around 40,” he says. This is mainly because of two things: HIV and malaria. “That has been my main motivation,” says Sathish. “I live in a country with resources form the copper industry, a democratic government, no war and people are still suffering as if they were living in a war zone.”

He is keen not to dwell on the negative, though, and sees shoots of hope in Zambia and elsewhere, such as the setting up of the Harambe Endeavour, an organisation of African scholars.

He says that when he left Zambia he was interested to hear the views of others on Africa. He found a mixture of pity and sympathy. “It was a picture that was not the Africa I grew up in. A lot of people do not give credit to the potential of Africa and where it can go,” he says. “We need to be more optimistic.”

Sathish is Zambia team director and UK ambassador of the Harambe Endeavor, an organisation of African scholars around the world. ̽��ֱ��word ‘harambe’ means ‘coming together’ in Swahili. It was started by students in Southern New Hampshire ̽��ֱ�� who had been involved in a philanthropic project in South Africa. They wanted to link up African leading scholars doing this kind of work, both in Africa and the diaspora, so that they could network and their work could be more effective. Sathish says such cooperation minimises bureaucracy, inefficiency and allows each project to build on examples of good practice elsewhere.

̽��ֱ��Internet has made all this possible – several of Harambe’s members are based at MIT in the US and have developed a knowledge sharing site, Puzzle, which allows people to easily identify different types of work being done in specific countries.

There are members in universities across the US and further afield and over the summer Sathish and others visited a number of countries in Africa to make links with universities there.

He has been working, for instance, with Mulungushi ̽��ֱ��, a fairly new university which is both privately and publicly funded and, says Sathish, is keen to produce high quality scholarship.

Just before his visit, Harambe held a symposium at Bretton Woods in the US to look at ways of promoting African development. There was talk of creating a Marshall Plan for Africa.

Sathish is keen to spread the Harambe Endeavor’s efforts to the UK, which has good historical links with African countries and universities and is hosting its inaugural UK meeting at Darwin College on Monday at 7pm.

̽��ֱ��Gates Cambridge scholarships were established in 2000 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to enable outstanding graduate students from outside the United Kingdom to study at the ̽��ֱ��. They are awarded on the basis of a person’s intellectual ability, leadership capacity and desire to use their knowledge to contribute to society.

Sathish is among 832 students from 85 countries who have been given the awards since 2001.
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