A personal view of the processes involved in conceiving, planning, and delivering a successful Business Plan. This talk is to support business-up ideas, mainly linked to the skills developed during DARA training, although not exclusively so. The talk will provide a framework of prompted questions on an effective approach to deal with :

Why am I considering starting a business?

• Goal Setting and Risk Management from the outset.

• No substitute for Market Research – the hard yards.

• Forecasting, cash flow and how to evaluate whether this is a sound business case.

• What are funders will be looking for and why you will be ready.

In 2007 Astronomers discovered a very bright burst of radio emission which lasted just a few milliseconds which originated far outside of our own galaxy. The extreme brightness and the very short duration indicate that the source must be highly energetic and mostly likely associated with a black hole or neutron star. Another possibility is that they are caused by some cataclysmic event, like the collapse of a neutron star to form a black hole or the merger of two neutron stars. As these bursts travel great distances through space they are potentially great probes of the material and space between us and their origin helping us to understand more about the missing mass and energy in the Universe. There are now dozens of these bursts known and the race is on to find many more with new and existing telescopes around the world. I will discuss some of the history of FRBs, our current understanding, and look forward to the future including possibilities for South Africa’s very own MeerKAT telescope. 

I will present the main results from my PhD work funded by DARA at the University of Leeds and briefly describe my journey from Kenya, through the DARA programme and my next steps.

Massive protostars drive out jets of material, which may be magnetically or radiatively driven. A search for synchrotron emission, associated with magnetised jets, was conducted on a sample of massive protostars, observed using the JVLA at 1.5 GHz. The emission from the objects was characterised using their spectral indices and spectral index maps, calculated from the 1.5GHz data, and previous observations at 6.0GHz and 44GHz. All the cores of the jets were found to be thermal, however, forty per cent of the jets have non-thermal lobes which are associated with synchrotron emission. Some of the sources in the sample displayed evidence of variability.

Besides observations, free-free emission from the jets' cores was simulated using hydrodynamics and ray-tracing codes.

I will outline the aims of this new e-seminar series and invite suggestions for topics for future e-seminars. I will briefly describe the current status of the DARA project as we approach the end of the second phase of the project. As with every other aspect of life at the moment the basic training programme is being delayed by about one year, but we still aim to complete the whole programme as originally planned. Recent developments in and around the DARA project include Masters students in Mauritius, the Business Consultant to provide advice and starting a business, and aligning with the new emphasis on the co-location of space related activities and radio astronomy under the African Programme coming from our South African partners, SARAO. I will also outline our current thinking for the next phase of DARA that we hope to bid for funding for over the next couple of years. This will include support for the teaching of astrophysics at undergraduate level in African universities, more Masters and PhDs in the UK and Africa and a new focus on postdoctoral fellows in African universities. We very much hope you will be able to join us to provide your input via questions at the end of the e-seminar.