What is An Algorithm? How Computers Know What to Do With Data

ColumnsNewsOpinionScience & TechnologyWhat is An Algorithm? How Computers Know What to Do With Data

PilotnewsOctober 17, 2020

The world of computing is full of buzzwords: AI, supercomputers, machine learning, the cloud, quantum computing and more. One word in particular is used throughout computing – algorithm. In the most general sense, an algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful information. The facts are data, and the useful information is knowledge for people, instructions for machines or input for yet...

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Nigerians Cry Out Against Police Brutality

ColumnsCrime & SecurityNigeriaOpinionNigerians Cry Out Against Police Brutality

PilotnewsOctober 17, 2020

In 2017, Nigerian youths adopted a campaign against brutality from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). The objective was to catalyze mass action against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the NPF set up to respond to armed robberies. The campaign, which adopted a mix of online and offline strategies, was popularly known on social media as #EndSARS. Over ten thousand Nigerians signed a petition and submitted it to the National Assembly calling for...

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Nigerian (and American) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Finalist for WTO Director General

ColumnsOpinionWorld NewsNigerian (and American) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Finalist for WTO Director General

PilotnewsOctober 14, 2020

The two finalists for the position of director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are Yoo Myung-hee, Republic of Korea, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian and (since 2019) an American citizen. The media is portraying Yoo Myung-hee as an international trade specialist and a WTO insider, while Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala describes herself as a WTO outsider; she combines, however, exceptional political and diplomatic experience with her economic training and subsequent career. She has been twice Nigeria’s finance...

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End SARS Campaign: Beyond the Rhetoric

ColumnsCrime & SecurityOpinionEnd SARS Campaign: Beyond the Rhetoric

Ebuka Onyekwelu (Staff Writer)October 11, 2020

By Ebuka Onyekwelu There is nothing more brazenly scandalous than abuse of power and public trust. But somehow, Nigerians have been able to put up with more than enough outrageous abuses, vandalism of sorts and dehumanization of the highest level. This, to the point that most Nigerians now justify or at least rationalize these incongruities, perhaps those are part of what it takes to be a Nigerian. In public bus, once police stops a bus...

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Louise Glück: Literature Nobel for American Lyric Poet a Healing Choice After Years of Controversy

Arts & CultureColumnsWorld NewsLouise Glück: Literature Nobel for American Lyric Poet a Healing Choice After Years of Controversy

PilotnewsOctober 10, 2020

Louise Glück is the first poet to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Tomas Tranströmer in 2011 and the first American to win since Toni Morrison in 1993. In their preference for the muddiness of everyday life over explicit engagement with their political and social issues, you can see a broad link between Glück and Tranströmer. On the surface, though, Morrison and Glück couldn’t appear to be more different. Morrison’s work lays bare both the lasting scars and...

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Harris and Pence Dodge Tough Questions in VP Debate – Experts React

ColumnsPoliticsUnited StatesHarris and Pence Dodge Tough Questions in VP Debate – Experts React

PilotnewsOctober 9, 2020

Vice presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Mike Pence sat far apart and separated by plexiglass for the only 2020 vice presidential debate, held in Utah on Oct. 7. Their exchanges were more civil than the presidential debate a week earlier, but Pence – and Harris to a lesser degree – avoided tough questions from USA Today’s Susan Page about the Supreme Court, COVID-19 response, succession and the peaceful transfer of power. Our experts were each...

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Senegal Pilgrimage Tests Resistance to COVID-19

ColumnsCoronavirusReligionWest AfricaSenegal Pilgrimage Tests Resistance to COVID-19

PilotnewsOctober 8, 2020

Senegal is a major center of West African Islam, and its imams, mullah, and brotherhoods are influential across the Sahel. The holy city of Touba, 120 miles east of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, is the site of a major, annual pilgrimage called the Magal, which is now underway. While no estimates are yet available as to the number of participants this year, in past years there have been as many as five million. The pilgrimage...

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Current regime trends stir revival of xenophobic conspiracy theorists

ColumnsDon OkoloOpinionCurrent regime trends stir revival of xenophobic conspiracy theorists

PilotnewsOctober 6, 20201

White privilege is a beast. It is an innate, naturally concocted following…it is therefore hard to extricate oneself from its snares. ―Don Okolo Man has disintegrated badly; his mind is still functional in the sense that it still wants to satisfy the musings of those like him. But the rest of him has acquired real estate in the pit of squalor where he now sits in comfort writing essays of disdain and mischievous husbandry in...

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Africa and the First U.S. Presidential Debate

AfricaColumnsNewsUnited StatesAfrica and the First U.S. Presidential Debate

PilotnewsOctober 2, 2020

Mainstream U.S. media is characterizing the September 29 debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as a disaster. The moderator was never able to establish control. President Trump, especially, constantly interrupted former Vice President Biden. Rather than a discussion about policy and ideas, the debate was a rant or a temper tantrum. In Africa, the debate will hardly burnish the image of democracy or the United States. However, the October 2 news that President Trump and the...

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How to Build Better Militaries in Africa: Lessons from Niger

ColumnsMilitaryNewsWest AfricaHow to Build Better Militaries in Africa: Lessons from Niger

PilotnewsOctober 1, 2020

In August, jihadists in Niger killed six French aid workers and two Nigeriens just outside of the capital, Niamey. Terrorist attacks have increased by 250 percent over the last two years in Africa’s Sahel region, according to the State Department. To help counter the threat of terrorism and build the capacity of African militaries, the U.S. government spends over $1.5 billion a year on security assistance to the African continent. Does this support work? Reliable security cooperation and assistance data are...

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