Cheick Modibo Diarra

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Cheick Modibo Diarra (born 1952) is a Malian astrophysicist.

Diarra was born in Nioro du Sahel. After graduating high school in Mali, Cheick Modibo Diarra studied mathematics, physics, and analytic mechanics in Paris at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, then aerospace engineering at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He was recruited by Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he played a role in several NASA programs, including the Magellan probe to Venus, the Ulysses probe to the Sun, the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter, and the Mars Observer and Mars Pathfinder. He later became the director of NASA's "Mars Exploration Program Education and Public Outreach."

In 1999, he obtained permission from NASA to work part-time in order to devote himself to education development in Africa, founding the Pathfinder Foundation. He took a further sabbatical in 2002 to found a laboratory in Bamako, Mali for the development of solar energy. In 2000 and 2001 he also served as a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO. In 2002 and 2003 he served as CEO of the African Virtual University, based in Kenya.

Cheick Modibo Diarra is currently the chairman of Microsoft Africa.

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This article began as a translation of the corresponding French article, accessed August 9, 2005. Cheick Modibo Diarra is Microsoft chairman for all Africa not only west Africa.He is based in South Africa