The story of Josue Ako

It’s time to go, to compete, and to be the best.
These are the words I was repeating during my graduation speech in 2022, after
completing four years of hard work to get my bachelor’s in mathematics. I was full of motivation and enthusiasm to embrace the professional world and the real world
itself, literally. The discovery of the diversity and the quality of the American-style
education and the amazing and diverse relationships I have developed at IUGB
drove me to want to see what the other parts of the world could offer.
In fact, I didn’t just want to go study abroad, I also wanted to grow in the best environment, following the path of excellence I started in the “Lycée Scientifique de Yamoussoukro” and at IUGB. Unfortunately, the best universities are generally the most expensive and even
though my application was accepted in most of them, I did not want to impose this
financial burden on my parents who already did so much for me.
I didn’t want to settle for less, so I started looking for scholarship, and while I was doing so, I completed several internships in big companies (LONACI, Ecobank, Schlumberger, etc.), thanks to the University-Industry Liaison Office (UILO) at IUGB and one of these internships was about to change my life.
In October 2023, I received an email from UILO about a fully funded scholarship
offered by Banque d’Abidjan to study at IESE Madrid (TOP #3 MBA in the world in
2023 according to the financial times).
The recipient of this scholarship were to be selected among a dozens of candidates,
all coming from west African countries. And they were all required to go through an
internship program in countries where the bank was represented.
The offer was mainly addressed to student in the field of business such as finance,
economics, management…etc.; but, despite my background in mathematics and
against all odds, I decided to apply, and after multiple interviews, I was accepted for the program.

In Côte d’Ivoire, we were four students from IUGB to be accepted in the program out of the total number of 5 students selected for the competition.
I spent several months working as an intern at the bank during the day while at night I studied in preparation for the last test. In the end, I was finally selected as the sole recipient of the scholarship to study at IESE Madrid. I am grateful to GOD, my family and the International University of Grand Bassam,
who contributed in making all this possible.
My goal for this new adventure is to perform in the best way possible, and to come
back here in Cote D’Ivoire as a perfect trilingual.
For all the aforementioned reasons, I will address these words to my peers and to myself again: “It’s time to go, to compete, and to be the best,” because that’s what
our motto is about: EXCELLENCE, ACCOUNTABILTY, OPPORTUNITY.

Fatima Doumbia Koné is a Mathematics lecturer at the international University of
Grand-Bassam (IUGB). Among the courses she taught we have the following: Introduction to
Differential Equations, Elementary Statistics, Calculus(I,II,III), Transforms in Applied Math,
Introduction to Linear Algebra, Operations Research and Abstract Algebra.
She has a Bachelor degree in Mathematics (IUGB), a Master degree in Pure and Applied
Mathematics (AUST) and she is currently enrolled for a PhD in Mathematics at the African
University of Science and Tecnology (AUST), Abuja. She has also been an intern at the
Institutional Banking Group department within GTBANK CI (Garanty Trust Bank Côte
D’Ivoire).
She is a former IUGB student and she was the president of the science club in 2015.
Academically, her goal is to be a great researcher and innovator on the topics of asymptotic
theories in Fuzzy Probability Theory and their various applications to image processing. She
has good programming skills (JAVA, LaTeX, C++) and she is bilingual (French and English).
Over the years, she has been developing a method of teaching which not only put students at
the center of the learning process but also which deconstruct most of the stereotypes about the
inaccessibility of mathematical knowledge to everybody.
Regarding her research activities, she has been working since 2018 on the topic of integration
on Banach spaces and a preprint of an interesting work is available at
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.04480. She is continuing with her research on integration but now
her PhD studies focus on Random Sets Integration in Probability Theory. Professionally, she
is a very active lecturer at IUGB and she is currently the faculty advisor of the SHE CLUB,
which aims at promoting women empowerment by providing learning, leadership and
networking opportunities.

I am currently Associate Professor of computer and data science in the school of science technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB).
From 2000 to 2018, I successively worked as a research scientist at Independent Computing Research in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Assistant Professor at the department of computer science and
engineering at Université Laval in Québec, Canada; Research Associate at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) where I also received a Ph.D. degree in computer science in March 2000. Upon receiving a master's degree in mathematical and computing science
from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) in 1990 in Japan, I worked as a research scientist at National/Panasonic, one of the most prestigious companies in Tokyo.
I am involved in research on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Semantic Web and its applications in a wide range of fields. Besides, I designed the current Data Science program in effect
since September 2021 in STEM. In addition, I am also one the founders and current President of the
Ivorian Association of Artificial Intelligence and member of ORBICOM, the Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication headquartered in University of Quebec in Montreal (UQUAM), Canada.

Kwame Simpe Ofori is an Assistant Professor in Finance at the school of Business and Social Sciences. He holds a doctorate degree in Finance, a master’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in Telecommunications Technology. He is also currently a PhD student at the School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He has taught courses in the areas of finance, computer science, computer and electrical engineering, and telecommunication engineering. Before joining IUGB he lectured in several universities in Ghana. He also worked with Ghana Telecommunications Company as a support engineer. His research interests are in the areas of consumer behaviour, technology adoption and trust in online systems and in recent times financial econometrics. His papers have appeared in several CABS-ranked journals such as Information Technology and People, Journal of Cleaner Productions, Quality Management Journal, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Journal of African Business, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology and Society and Business Review.