Kouayep Lawou Sylvain was born in 1974 at the Bangoua maternity hospital. He grew up in the Tonga district where he did his primary education. His father was a carpenter and his mother a technical agent of the agricultural office. His secondary education at the Saint Jean Baptiste College in Bangangté allowed him to access the universities of Dschang and Yaoundé 1 in Cameroon where he obtained a PhD in geosciences of superficial formations and at Mines ParisTech in France where he graduated with a Master's degree in technical and economic analysis of mining operations. Author of three dissertations, a PhD thesis and six scientific articles, the themes developed are mass movements, geotechnical, mineralogical, geochemical and technological studies of materials. An expert in mining exploration, he is currently working as a lecturer at the University of Bertoua.