An act of kindness changed the course of John Bosco Habarulema’s life. Today he is recognised as one of Africa’s leading space scientists and in December, Habarulema received the American Geophysical Union’s 2016 Africa award for research excellence. But 22 years ago, when he was 14, this achievement was unimaginable. For one thing, he did not know what space science was. The third child of subsistence farming parents in Uganda, there was never a lot of money for his education. "There was a bit of a push from my parents to go to primary school, but after that, it was a self-driven thing," he says on the phone from his office at the Hermanus campus of the South African National Space Agency (Sansa). His secondary school was 14km from home and he walked there and back every weekday. "Every morning, I was late. So whatever punishment there was for coming late, I received it every day." His principal, the late David Rwarinda, noticed the consistently tardy student and when he discovered...
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