Wednesday 21 January, 1pm. Ellen Terry Building, Coventry University.

Professor John Oucho, University of Warwick, formerly University of Nairobi, was an acquaintance of Barack Obama Snr at the University of Nairobi. At this special Coventry Conversations event to mark the inauguration of Barack Obama Jnr, Professor Oucho discusses his hopes for the future of Africa and the US.

Barack Obama Junior will be Inaugurated as the forty fourth President of the USA in Washington on January 20. He swept to power in the November elections with a stunning victory over John McCain. Obama has the hopes of millions world-wide resting on his Presidency. He is the first Black American and first African American ever to sit in the West Wing of the White House. Obama's mother was white American, his father a Kenyan student, Barack Obama Snr, at the University of Hawaii. Barack Obama's relationship to the lands of his forefathers - Kenya and Africa - will be very different to that of any previous US President.

Professor John Oucho was acquainted at Nairobi University with Barack Obama Senior. Now the distinguished Marie Curie Professor at Warwick, he taught at Nairobi for two decades and in Ghana, Botswana and the USA. He has a well developed interest in the future of Africa, as he demonstrated in two earlier Coventry Conversations on Kenya and Zimbabwe - and its future. John Oucho will discuss 'Obama and Africa: my hopes' on Wednesday January 21 at 1.00 in the Ellen Terry Building of Coventry University in a special Coventry Conversation linked to historic events four thousand miles away.

Entry is free and open to all.