On 4 February Prof. Neil Turok gave a talk to students titled: ‘Beginnings’. In the talk he described his own story, how he got interested in science, how he helped AIMS and how reward-ing the journey has been. He also talked about some of the big challenges in basic phys-ics today and why, in his view, we may be on the threshold of revolutionary advances. Finally, he talked about the future: how we need to reinvent universities and the way we do science, why Africa may be the ideal place to do this and why he believes the next Einstein could be African.