This morning I stopped by the "2026 Welcome Party" hosted virtually by MLC Nigeria. I expected it to be an event with 12 RSVPs and 7 who actually showed up.
There were 85 people on the call.
Steven K presented slides on their detailed plans to land internships for people, to help people build a CV that will get them into masters and PhD programs, to help with the actual grad school applications when they roll around, and to handle rec letters for folks who have non-traditional, non-"name brand" mentors from outside academia.
My favorite part was a hard look at what hadn't gone so well in 2025 and what they were going to do about it in 2026, including a clear path for what milestones researchers should be trying to hit:
Project -> Workshop paper -> Mid tier conference paper -> Top tier conference paper
Judging from the growing list of their recently accepted papers, it's been working pretty well already.
As the group has grown, they've been getting more interest from people outside Nigeria, so they're in the process of rebranding to MLC Africa. If you're an early career researcher OR if you're further along and interested in mentoring people, please say hi in their Discord channel or at one of their events.
The slides concluded with a final exhortation, perhaps as welcome to you wherever you are as it was to me:
