Monday, September 15, 2025
Experts on Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Africa have challenged African universities and other learning institutions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies and use social media for teaching. At eLearning Africa 2011, they agreed that institutions can reduce running costs, mobilise learning resources and expand research capacity with social media.
A pioneering mobile ICT project launched in Rwanda barely two years ago is changing lives in the central African nation, now striving to become a leading ICT hub. Rwanda has made an almost miraculous recovery from the genocide of 1994 that claimed at least 800,000 lives and left millions displaced. The World Bank is funding a fleet of special ICT buses.
The EAST Challenge took place shortly before the eLearning Africa conference this year. Dr Harold Elletson of the United Kingdom and Fatou Ndiaye of Senegal spearheaded the trek up Mount Meru in Tanzania, Africa’s fourth highest mountain, as part of an effort to raise money from friends, family and eLA supporters for scholarships for low-income African educators to attend eLearning Africa. eLearning Africa would […]
Microsoft has been involved in eLearning and ICT for development in Africa in a variety of ways for many years, be it in ‘Training the trainer’ workshops for teachers, in eGovernment initiatives or in the development of new technologies. Here, Mark Matunga, Education Manager for Microsoft East & Southern Africa (ESA) speaks about the significant progress that has been made in Africa, persisting barriers […]
In the Ghanaian capital Accra, one government minister takes questions from citizens via Facebook. One journalist in Kenya uses his smart phone to e-mail breaking news instantly from a corporate press conference; his announcements affect share prices on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Technology is rapidly changing Africa, and at the forefront of this change is rising access to broadband Internet. Broadband is even more […]
It is an undeniable fact that agriculture is the mainstay of Tanzania’s economy, employing about 85 percent of the labour force. Tanzania still relies on small-scale subsistence agriculture based on traditional practices, failing to take full advantage of commercial initiatives. Poverty in rural areas is forcing thousands of young people to leave their homes for urban areas. The forthcoming eLearning Africa […]
One of the liveliest speakers in the plenary session at this year’s eLearning Africa is likely to be Mr Jenerali Ulimwengu. Well known in Tanzania and throughout East Africa as the host of a popular television talk show ‘Jenerali on Monday,’ Mr Ulimwengu is also a media mogul and the Chairman of Raia Mwema, a political newspaper.
How do young Africans use social networks, chat forums and mobile phones? eLearning Africa 2011 will bring together a group of young African people, including twenty Tanzanians, to discuss the impact of ICTs on their lives. The session will be run entirely by young African people, while the ‘clueless’ older generation – those over 24 – will have observer status.
Ombeni Msuya, who has been working as the sole ICT technician at Tanzania’s National Institute of Transport (NIT), has won an eLearning Africa scholarship to this year’s eLA conference in Tanzania. EAST, the eLearning Africa Scholarship Trust, heard how a 22 year old IT expert born in a small village on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro had worked singlehanded at the country’s biggest […]
One of the most significant challenges facing education in West Africa is the region’s young, dynamic and fast growing population: Almost 70 percent of the estimated 230 million people in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are under the age of 35. The region is also saddled with a large proportion of disadvantaged or marginalised people in remote and/or deprived communities, including […]
