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CONNECT The magazine of Kellogg College | 2021CONTENTS We’re committed to making as little impact on the environment as possible. That’s why our magazine is printed using FSC certified paper on a 100% waterless press. The entire process is powered by 100% renewable energy and involves zero waste to landfill. If you have received this magazine via post but would rather receive an electronic copy, please email: alumni@kellogg.ox.ac.uk Designed by juicy-designs.com5 32 19 6 34 20 12 40 24 16 2830 Welcome From the President Profile: Sarah O’Brien Wellbeing guru Sustainability commitment Meet Kellogg’s new Sustainability Fellow African storytelling In the time of Covid Prison: no place for children The Somaliland lawyer who’s stepping up Scholars’ spotlight Scholars share their Kellogg experiences How do we do culture next? Covid: a chance to reimagine the future News from our Fellows Hear how they’re fighting cybercrime and improving productivity Inside the 2021 boat race With Martin Barasko Creating low cost ventilator systems The race to help Africa Recognising alumni generosity The 1990 Club Restoring the art the Nazis stole Behind the scenes at Sotheby’sI salute all members of our College community for having contributed in a whole range of ways since the March 2020 lockdown, ensuring Kellogg continued to operate so effectively over the past year. Our staff have been phenomenal, dealing with greater student application numbers than ever, each member of the academic team working from their own homes. Being required to close our Dining Hall, our catering staff were furloughed (on full pay), but that didn’t stop our Head Chef Jon Wilmot giving an online Master Class – ably assisted by our Vice President, Dr Judith Hillier – on preparing the baked chocolate tart with roasted figs and mascarpone cream for our Virtual Gaudy Dinner in September. I know (from your ‘likes’ on twitter and Facebook) that many of you, like me, enjoyed the regular photos and videos from College provided by our Head of Facilities Management, Jason King, who has been project managing many maintenance and site improvement works throughout the pandemic. You may notice some changes when you are next at Kellogg. Student recruitment in October 2020 was as high as ever, and variously welcoming new and returning students was more work than ever, with some students making it to Oxford, but others stuck in their countries across the globe. Our Admissions Tutor, Senior Tutor, Dean, and Vice President deserve special thanks. Every cloud has a silver lining. We had already established a ‘digital strategy’ group, ably led by former Senior Tutor Dr Andrew Simpson. The need to engage virtually with our students brought forward these plans. And as we return to normality, we will retain these new ways of working, and continue to build on them. Our aim is that wherever you are in the world, you should be in touch and engaged with your College. This means continuing to provide online access to events, and continually improving the online experience, for example in being able to ask live questions to event speakers, and so on. It also means being cognisant of time zones, and if necessary repeating events to accommodate. The picture on the front cover of the previous issue of Connect was prescient, being of our then newest Fellow, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, at Kellogg in March 2020, just before lockdown. His Royal Highness spoke about the honour of having been made a Kellogg Fellow, and his delight at the success of our new Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, which comprises Oxford academics working globally, including from the team in Thailand led by Kellogg Fellow Professor Nick Day. Following His Royal Highness’s March 2020 visit to the Centre, it was agreed to create a Commission on Creating Healthy Cities. This has since been launched, chaired by Lord Best. It includes Kellogg Fellows Dr Kamal Mahtani, Sir David Brown, and Lord Bilimoria; an International Advisory Board chaired by Lord Crisp and including Kellogg Fellows Dr Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, and La June Montgomery Tabron. We have recruited two post-docs to work in the Centre on the Commission, generously funded by the Prince’s Foundation, the McCall MacBain Foundation, Dr Ralph Walter, and Mr Halley Liu. As with other colleges, the lockdown led to events being postponed, including visits by Birkbeck President, Baroness Joan Bakewell; former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Sir Vince Cable; and La June Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of the WK Kellogg Foundation. I hope you managed to join the rescheduled virtual events in April-June 2021, and if not that you will be able to join when our speakers visit Kellogg next academic year, when we can continue the discussions over drinks and formal dinner. Kellogg continues to be active on matters of environmental sustainability, receiving ‘Green Impact’ Gold Awards in 2019 and 2020, and a ‘Beyond Gold Award’ for our initiatives during 2020-21. We have ambitious plans to develop our grounds and facilities. I look forward to sharing further good news over the coming months and years. Professor Jonathan Michie President, Kellogg College Welcome 5 CONNECT MAGAZINE6 CONNECT MAGAZINE in the time of CovidMany Africans have been frustrated to see how international media have portrayed their continent’s experience of Covid-19. Kenyan journalist and entrepreneur Zain Verjee (MSt Creative Writing, 2013) decided to set the record straight by founding Covid HQ Africa – a storytelling platform presenting a unique collection of stories from creators from all corners of Africa. 7 CONNECT MAGAZINE The most important person in Africa is the storyteller. That has been my mantra for the many years I have been invested in the Africa media space. It’s the storyteller that sets the values, ideas and the agenda of a generation. Africa has immensely diverse, authentic and powerful stories that simply must be told. The pandemic has highlighted many aspects about storytelling in Africa ranging from disappointing to immensely challenging to exciting. The world braced for Africa, certain that Africans would be devastated immediately by Covid because of poor health systems, dense urban populations and limited resources such as oxygen. That did not happen, although a year later, the numbers are rising significantly on the continent. International journalists framed the Africa story with a tone that frustrated many Africans. There was plenty of discussion around why America and Europe were getting pounded with the virus yet Africa was not. Perhaps Africans’ DNA is more resilient because we have so much infectious disease on the continent, or perhaps it’s the warm weather, or perhaps it’s because Africa has a median age of 19 on the continent, or perhaps our testing is so limited we are not able to reflect the reality around us. These are our stories to tell. There has been enormous optimism around the African creative and cultural industries, but Covid hurt us. There have been large decreases in revenues, working from home has been tough with unstable internet and bandwidth issues. It’s affected the output quality and consistency of content delivery. Media operations have been scaled down considerably, affecting storytelling across the regions. At the start of the pandemic, my partner Chidi and I partnered with MasterCard Foundation, one of the rare organisations that gets the importance of storytelling and backs their belief in African creators with action. With the Foundation, we built a data and information site and storytelling platform. We learned how to work remotely more effectively, and with a global health crisis in front of us, the need for key communications and technology rose to the top and played to all our strengths. Chidi, ever the talented product guy, investigated platforms and determined which would be best for us to operate with. We settled on two platforms in particular and this is the result: CovidHQAfrica.com. We have pulled together a superb editorial team between South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya that are taking us to next level storytelling. Together, we tell the raw, unvarnished voices from the continent you will not hear, see or read anywhere else. We have created a safe space for storytellers to share their inspiration, innovations, mental health struggles, families, and faith. We have been commissioning good work and are accelerating stories that contain crucial health messages. The pandemic has shown me, and continues to show me, that in spite of all the continent’s challenges, this is the time to invest in Africa’s creative communications spaces. 8 CONNECT MAGAZINE Fear and denial Journalist X describes how he attempted to deny to himself and his family that he could possibly have contracted Covid-19 – a reaction he later realised endangered both himself and those around him. Wallowing in denial, I self-medicated with painkillers and continued going to work without breathing a word of my symptoms to my colleagues, one of whom soon noticed my uncanny habit of drinking hot water in spite of Kenya’s sweltering weather. Concerned, she advised I take the Covid test, but I brushed her off insisting I had the common flu and was on the mend. On the home front, my wife only inquired about my lack of appetite, which I attributed to the flu, not wanting to panic her or our two children. As a journalist, I was aware of the stigma associated with taking the Covid test and feared our neighbours would ridicule my family if they found out that I tested positive. Paralysed by worry and anxiety, I sunk deeper into denial and began using local concoctions, including boiled lemon water, ginger and garlic, to alleviate the symptoms. It was at this point my wife suspected something was amiss as I spent exceedingly long hours in bed. Once again, I rebuffed her concerns until she threatened to call government health officials if I refused to seek medical help. Two days after I took the test, my worst fears were confirmed: I had Coronavirus. A medical student’s logbook Medical student Elizabeth K Ngato shares the high stakes drama of the emergency room during a pandemic. “Will you be attending the memorial service?” My roommate asks. I look up from the book I have been reading and shake my head. “No. I have to be in the wards today, and I have a class. Are you going?” “Yeah.” “You’ll tell me how it goes?” “Sure.” I go back to my reading, but my thoughts are distracted by the conversation we have just had. The late Dr. Owanda, a 28 year-old who recently completed medical school, is the third doctor we’ve lost to Covid. I sigh. My heart feels heavy and my mind wanders to the message he sent hours before his demise to his colleagues: Get your pay or get out while you still can, with your life intact. I stare at the worn-out N-95 mask on my desk. It’s the fifth day I’m wearing it. What am I doing here in medical school? I wonder. I could defer my studies and come back much later when the pandemic ends. It would certainly be safer for me, but I have a strong desire to remain. The voices of Africa’s pandemic A selection of excerpts from the extraordinary stories on Covid HQ Africa in the time of Covid9 CONNECT MAGAZINE Learning beyond the classroom When Nigeria went into lockdown the educational non-profit Beyond the Classroom foundation leapt into action with a series of initiatives – including one that would help correct misinformation about the virus. On a visit to one of the camps in Abuja to distribute the free food items, the children asked a lot of questions about Covid-19 that kept us at the camp for hours. At the end, it was clear that so many children out there knew little or nothing about Covid-19. Our response to that problem was the Covid-19 book, There Is a New Virus in Town. I recall getting home that day, exhausted yet determined to pen down the first draft of the book. I searched the internet for available information on Covid-19, with what I had already heard from the news, I created a layout and started to fill in gradually. Three days after, I had the first draft which I gave to a few children to read. I wanted to get feedback about the language, images and fonts. This I got thankfully and the book was finalised in less than a week. I went on social media and announce that we needed funds to print the first 1,000 books and in June 2020, the first version was printed. Community love When X and her husband lost their incomes at the worst possible time, they were astonished to find neighbours rallying round them. By the end of April, I was pregnant, a blessing from God, yes, but it came at the wrong time. Before the pandemic, I worked as a project coordinator promoting sexual and reproductive rights in the village of Bukasa. I visited homesteads to assess their health and often gave de-worming tablets for free and offered health discounts to the elderly and children that could not afford medical attention, sometimes connecting them to medical specialists. So when Covid reared its ugly face, and robbed me and my husband of our jobs, the townspeople returned the favour. Neighbours and distant friends often brought produce from their garden: maize, sweet potatoes, cassava, matooke, vegetables. There was a neighbour, Nalongo, who took it upon herself to see that my husband and I didn’t lack food. Everyday, she sent her children to bring us pancakes and bananas for breakfast, and in the evenings, she shared her supper with us or sent us uncooked food from her stall for us to prepare. In my well of needs, I found love, support and encouragement from neighbours, family members and the church that has buoyed me and my husband through what could be considered crippling challenges. Next >