Skip to main content

Report Christophe Petit Senegal 2015

Name of Volunteer: Christophe Petit

Email: Christophe.petit@ucl.ac.uk

Home Institution: University College London

Position at home institution: Research Associate

Host Institution: African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) - Senegal

Arrival and departure date in host country: March 28 – April 19th 2015

Who was your main contact in the host country (name, affiliation and email address)?
Dr Amadou Tall, academic manager of AIMS-Senegal, amadou.tall@aims-senegal.org

Please answer the following questions:
1) Location (country, city, institution) of your lecture:
Senegal, Mbour, AIMS-Senegal

2) Dates of your lecture: 
April 6- April 17

3) Subject and title of the course: 
Cryptography

4) How often did you teach a course?
2h/day, 10 days

5) How many students took part in the course(s)? 
11 master students + 2 PhD students

6) Background of students: Undergraduate/ Master/ PhD Students?
11 master students + 2 PhD students

7) Please provide (if possible) any schedule of activities/list of topics covered during your visit. 
Lectures: general introduction to cryptography; private key encryption (one-time pad, DES, AES, PRP, IND-CPA and IND-CCA security); Diffie-Hellman key exchange; publick key encryption (ElGamal, RSA); hash functions (Merkle-Damgaard construction, SHA2); Message authentication codes, DSA and RSA signatures, RSA-OAEP; public key infrastructures and certificates; cryptanalysis (birthday paradox, Pohligh-Hellman, Pollard rho, BSGS, index calculus for Fp)
Informal discussion with master students regarding their master projects, on primality testing, quantum key exchange, information theory, PGP, Groebner basis algorithms
Regular meeting with PhD student Ange-Salome Messeng-Ekossono on her PhD project

8) Did you develop or follow a prescribed syllabus or did you write your own?  Was it available to the students before the course or when the course began?
I came with my lecture slides from University College London. I adjusted these slides while I was there to match the students’ background at best.  
Please also mention the references you used or any textbooks that were referred to:
Introduction to Modern Cryptography, by Katz-Lindell
Algorithmic Cryptanalysis, by Joux
Many students had previously taken part of Dan Boneh’s class on Coursera

9) Did you use any books, classroom material, AV, or other technology-based materials? 
A beamer to project my slides and a white board to provide complimentary information.
Some of the exercises required a computer which they have at their disposal there.

10) What type of assessment tools did you use? Attach if available, any notes or exams/quizzes that were distributed to students.
Four small quizzes (15min) at the beginning of lectures.
One problem-solving session, with lecture notes, computer and the internet available.
One assignment that they solved collectively.
One final evaluation in two parts (first one theory, second one with lecture notes)

11) In which language was the course given:
English, with occasionally some French when needed by a student

12) Was the course language the native language of the students?
Some of them but not all

13) Did you give any public lectures, and did you discuss with local staff issues regarding the curriculum?
Informal discussions and small suggestions

14) Where did you live? (e.g. hotel, hostel, on campus, in city e.g.)
Guest house, 5min walk from campus

15) Do you have any recommendations/suggestions to the professor who will visit the university in the future (also regarding accommodation, health and visa issues)?
Feel free to contact regarding level. I was positively surprised. Their background is applied maths; they tend to like better and be better at programming and concrete concepts

16) Would you like to share anything else, such as a particular experience, testimonial etc.?
I was very warmly welcome. 
The students are very committed to their study.