A policy think tank and research hub for the maritime industry (International Trade), Centre for International Maritime Affairs Ghana (CIMAG) has announced the appointment of Dr Bismark Ameyaw as a member of the Board of Directors.

Dr Ameyaw joined the management of CIMAG in 2019 as the Director of Research and Advocacy prior to his new appointment on Wednesday, 29 July 2020.

Dr Ameyaw joins a team of experienced professionals on the Board, which is made up of A.Y. Jim-Fugar, Board Chairman; Dr York Abaidoo, Member (Technical Advisor); Albert Derrick Fiatui, Executive Director; Danny Laud, Co-Director (Member); Yvonne Osei Tutu  (Member); and Rev. Gabriel Fiatui, Consultant (Member).

In a press statement released by CIMAG, Dr Ameyaw stated: “It has been a great honour to be part of the CIMAG Board of Directors,” adding that: “I am incredibly proud of our accomplishments over the period. I am confident in our future and in CIMAG’s leadership as we continue to grow and expand our impact.”

The Executive Director of CIMAG, Albert Derrick Fiatui, expressing his excitement on Dr Ameyaw’s appointment, said: “His significant and senior expertise in corporate services, research and policy development, coupled with his experience across global markets and deep knowledge of the maritime and energy terrain, will stand us in good stead as we progress toward our ambition to be one of the best-performing, most-trusted and respected policy think tanks in the world. His reputation as one of the leading researchers and his track record will be an inspiration to our people and ways of working.”

The Board of CIMAG also announced the appointment of Dr Kingsley Nketia Acheampong, as the Director of IT, Software Engineering and Data Development.

Dr. Bismark Ameyaw is an energy analyst and a top renewable energy expert.

He is a data scientist with scholarly data modeling tools created to outperform top data modeling predictive systems in the United States.

He is also a professional member of the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE) and the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE), and a reviewer to a number of top-tier international journals.

Dr. Bismark Ameyaw has already worked on investigating and proposing mitigation pathway scenarios to achieve lower carbon emissions for all West African countries.

He is currently pursuing his second Ph.D. in the field of renewable energy technologies, and energy policy.

Dr Ameyaw is utilising the policy sequencing tool to propose pathways to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions.

He has garnered experience from diverse, supervising and assisting funded research projects on maritime development, renewable energy, environmental sustainability, air pollution, and climate change. He takes keen interest in Ghana’s maritime sector.

He is also a columnist for the Business & Financial Times (B&FT), writing on deploying renewable energy technologies, maritime-related issues, and entrepreneurship development.

His most recent research publication is entitled: “Modeling the long-run drivers of total renewable energy consumption: evidence from top five heavily polluted countries.”

Dr. Kingsley Nketia Acheampong, also the latest addition to the Board, as the Director of IT, Software Engineering & Data Development, has gained over 10 years of excellent analytical, problem-solving and coding skills in the fields of computer and software engineering.

He received the B.Sc Degree in Computer Engineering and the M.Eng. in Information and Software Engineering.

Dr Acheamping briefly served as an Applications and Software Engineer, NSS Huawei Technologies, Accra (Ghana).

He joined the Sun-Data Group as a Data Scientist and NLP researcher in 2016.

He has a Ph.D. in Information and Software Engineering.

His research interests included Cognitive Modeling and Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing, Data Analysis and Analytics and Optimisation of Data Structures and Algorithms.

Dr Acheampong is highly-skilled at software development, state-of-the-art data analytics and machine learning techniques from development to production levels.

He has gained mastery in critical problem discovery and provision of reusable data solutions to enforce high productivity at corporate levels.

He is also renowned for participating in many data science competitions such as the ANZ Data Science Competition, in which he was awarded the 2nd prize in 2018 and first prize in 2019.

Elements of his current research include Systems Engineering and Development, International Software Development, Advanced-Data Science and Analytics, Development of Real-time Data-driven Predictive Models and Meta-Optimisation of Neural Machine Translation Models.

CIMAG was founded as a non-partisan institution, to advance policy-thinking on pressing maritime issues linked to the blue economic challenges. 

CIMAG seeks to narrow its research focus on the streams of Maritime Economy, Maritime Security/Safety and the Maritime Ecology/Environment Protection.

CIMAG provides the industry with a platform for policymakers and other stakeholders to engage with players from the maritime business community, to proffer solutions for a multi-sectoral industry effort in addressing critical Maritime sustainable development challenges. 

CIMAG also seeks to complement the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that convenes governments on shipping with industry involvement, including maritime safety and environmental issues.

The Centre also engages international and regional researchers, businesses, NGO’s, governments and academic institutions in maximising the gains of international trade.