EMBASSY NEWS
WOW! Dr. Cheik Modibo Diarra!
There are only six interplanetary navigators at one time, and Dr. Diarra said people would laugh when they saw his business card, accusing him of being a Star Trek fan. How does one go from a village in Mali to being a member of the elite National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) team that worked on the Magellan probe to Venus, the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter, the Mars Pathfinder mission, and the Ulysses probe to the Sun? Hard work was his answer – knowing what you want to do with your life, hard work, and preparation.
Cheick Modibo Diarra was born in Nioro du Sahel, Mali and completed the first leg of his education in Bamako. He studied mathematics, physics and analytic engineering in Paris and began teaching at Howard University in the United States after earning his doctorate at Howard. He described to the crowd how he was selected for the NASA job: he was walking across the Howard campus one day, in a t-shirt and jeans, when he was mistaken for a student by a NASA recruiter. The recruiter beckoned Dr. Diarra to come over to the recruiting booth and talk with him. The recruiter asked several questions, each question being a little more difficult than the previous as he came to realize that this man knew all the answers. Dr. Diarra was then invited to visit NASA in California and subsequently offered a job. Preparation was the key, he emphasized – he had prepared for a moment just like that all his life. When his preparation coincided with opportunity – his career took off!
Dr. Diarra is the chairman of Microsoft Africa and was in Brazzaville for only two days, representing Microsoft and signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Minister of Telecommunications Thierry Moungalla. Chargé Cindy Gregg met him at a small reception and asked him to come to Villa Washington. He assured her would spare a few minutes from a very busy schedule to meet with some of the English Club members. He stayed two hours, mesmerizing the audience with astronomical facts. Did you know the Sun is so large that over 1 million planets the size of our Earth could fit into it? And the response to everyone’s first question: Yes, perhaps within the next 100 years, we will have people living on Mars if current biosphere experiments are positive.
Dr. Diarra exhibited pride not only in his NASA experience and his current Microsoft chairmanship, but also in his African Virtual University which he established in Kenya. He created the Pathfinder Foundation for Education and Development, aimed at encouraging female students to become involved in scientific education. What lies ahead? Dr. Diarra would like to help his homeland Mali with water and resource issues, completing a project he had started before agreeing to work with Microsoft.
Preparation + opportunity = success: this was the key element of Dr. Diarra’s speech. Following the presentation, English Club members said they were in awe of Dr. Diarra’s achievements and found in Dr. Diarra a positive African role model who has helped make the world a much better place.
