Dear colleagues and friends, 


Given that SONA (the SfN / FENS conference equivalent in Africa is starting today) and that we have a bit of representation there, we have decided to extend the DEADLINE for the next IMBIZO by one week. 

Apply now to join us at the most diverse neuroscience summer school at the most beautiful beach in the world!


If you know anyone who would benefit from an extraordinary computational neuroscience summer school, please distribute this information to them.


All the best, 


Tim Vogels



IBRO-SIMONS COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE IMBIZO 

#Imbizo2024

7 January - 28 January 2024, Noordhoek Beach, Cape Town, South Africa

http://imbizo.africa/


Application deadline: 18th July 2023


The #Imbizo2024 is a southern hemisphere summer school aiming to promote computational neuroscience in Africa. It will bring together international and local students under the tutelage of the world's leading experts in the field. Like its international sister courses, this four-week summer school aims to teach central ideas, methods, and practices of modern computational neuroscience through a combination of lectures and hands-on project work. Mornings will be devoted to lectures on topics across the breadth of computational neuroscience, including experimental underpinnings and machine learning analogues. The rest of the day will be spent working on research projects under the close supervision of expert tutors and faculty. Individual research projects will focus on the modelling of neurons, neural systems, behaviour, the analysis of state-of-the-art neural data, and the development of theories to explain experimental observations. It also includes a week focused on neuroscience-inspired machine learning!


Who should apply?

This course is aimed at Masters and early-PhD level students though Honours or advanced undergraduates may also apply. Postdoctoral students who can motivate why the course would benefit them are also encouraged to apply, Students should have sufficient quantitative skills, (e.g. a background in mathematics, physics, computer science, statistics, engineering or related field). Some knowledge of neural biology will be useful but not essential. Experimental neuroscience students are encouraged to apply, but should ensure that they have a reasonable level of quantitative proficiency (i.e. at least second-year level mathematics or statistics and have done at least one course in computer programming).


Essential details

* Fee (which covers tuition, lodging, and meals): 1350 EUR

Thanks to our generous sponsors, significant financial assistance is available to reduce and waiver fees for students, particularly for African applicants. We also hope to provide some travel bursaries for international students. If you are in need of financial assistance to attend the Imbizo, please state so clearly in the relevant section of your application.

The Imbizo is planned to be hosted in person, with everyone following our COVID policy. If it is unsafe to hold the summer school, we will follow up with further information at the appropriate time.


* Application deadline: 18th July 2023

* References submitted: 24th July 2023

* Notification of results: August 2023

Information and application

https://imbizo.africa/



Questions?

isicn.imbizo@gmail.com 


What is an Imbizo?

\ɪmˈbiːzɒ\ | Xhosa - Zulu

A gathering of the people to share knowledge.


Past and future faculty:

Adrienne Fairhall - Washington University

Alex Pouget - University of Geneva

Anne-Marie Oswald - University of Pittsburgh

Annik Carson - AI Redefined

Arif Hamid - University of Minnesota Medical School

Aza Allsop - Yale University

Bard Ermentrout - University of Pittsburgh

Bianca Jones Marlin - Columbia University

Blake Richards - McGill University

Brent Doiron - University of Chicago

Cengiz Pehlevan - Harvard University

Christopher Currin - Institute of Science and Technology Austria & IndabaX South Africa

Daniela Vallentin - Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence

David Sussillo - Google

Demba Ba - Harvard University

Dongyan Lin - MILA

Evan Schaffer - Columbia University

Franck Kalume - University of Washington

Grace Lindsay - New York University

Guillaume Lajoie - University of Montreal & MILA

Henning Sprekeler - Technical University of Berlin

Ilenna Jones - Harvard University

Joseph Raimondo - University of Cape Town

Mackenzie Mathis   - EPFL Lausanne

Marjorie Xie - Columbia University

Mohamed Abdelhack - Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics

Nina Kudryashova- University of Edinburgh

Peter Latham - University College London

Rachael Dangarembizi - University of Cape Town

Roy Eyono - MILA

Spiros Chavlis - IMBB-FORTH

SueYeon Chung - New York University

Thomas Tagoe - University of Ghana

Tim Vogels - Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Timothy Lillicrap - DeepMind

Xaq Pitkow - Baylor College of Medicine



ORGANISERS

Demba Ba (Harvard University)

Christopher Currin (Institute of Science and Technology Austria & IndabaX South Africa)

Peter Latham (Gatsby Unit for Computational Neuroscience)

Joseph Raimondo (University of Cape Town)

Emma Vaughan (Imbizo Logistics)

Tim Vogels (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)


Sponsors

The Imbizo is made possible by the generous support from the Simons Foundation, the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) as well as the Wellcome Trust, Google Deep Mind, Meta and others.


Organizational Affiliates

University of Cape Town, University College London, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Harvard University, TReND in Africa, Neuroscience Institute, Gatsby Foundation, IBRO African Center for Advanced Training in Neurosciences at UCT