The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people is an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown, due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide.
Kano is a city in northern Nigeria and the capital of Kano State. It is the second largest city in Nigeria after Lagos, with over four million citizens living within 449 km2 (173 sq mi). Located in the Savanna, south of the Sahel, Kano is a major route of the trans-Saharan trade, having been a trade and human settlement for millennia. It is the traditional state of the Dabo dynasty who have ruled as emirs over the city-state since the 19th century. Kano Emirate Council is the current traditional institution inside the city boundaries of Kano, and under the authority of the Government of Kano State.
'Gbenga Sesan is a social entrepreneur who delivers Information and communications technology to the under served. He has had a career in the application of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) – for individuals, institutions, nation-states, regional entities and the international community.
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, also called UNIZIK or NAU in short is a federal university in Nigeria. It consists of two campuses in Anambra State. Its main campus is in Awka, while its other campus is in Nnewi. There are also other campuses of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. These include Agulu in Aniocha local government area and Ifite-Ogwuari in Ayamelum local government area in Anambra State. This makes Nnamdi Azikiwe University to operate in the three Senatorial Districts in Anambra State, Nigeria having Awka campus, in Anambra Central Senatorial District, Nnewi in Anambra North Senatorial District and Ifite-Ogwuari in Anambra North Senatorial District, respectively. These campuses have libraries and information services that serve the students, academic and non-academic staff. It is one of the federal universities which are overseen and accredited by the National Universities Commission. The university is named after late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. The academic staff of the university belong to Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The staff union is known to grant scholarship to indigent students just like other philanthropists. It has a total population of about 34,000 students.
Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is a federal Government-owned university that is located in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1961 and classes commenced in October 1962 as the University of Ife by the regional government of Western Nigeria, which was led by Samuel Ladoke Akintola. It was renamed "Obafemi Awolowo University" on 12 May 1987 in honour of Obafemi Awolowo (1909–1987), the first premier of the Western Region of Nigeria, whose idea the university was.
Ali A. Abdi is a Somali-Canadian sociologist and educationist. Currently, he is a professor of social development education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he previously served as head of department. Before that, he was a professor of International Education and International Development at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he also served as the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER). He is past president of the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada (CIESC). In addition, he is the founding editor/co-editor of the peer-reviewed online publications Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education and Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry.
Covenant University(CU) is a private Christian university in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. It is affiliated with Living Faith Church Worldwide and is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Association of African Universities, and National Universities Commission. In 2019, Covenant University became the first Nigerian university to be ranked in the top 401-500 category of world universities by Times Higher Education.
The African Virtual University (AVU) is a pan-African effort to create an open and affordable distance learning institution to serve the African continent. The AVU began in 1997 as a project of the World Bank and later developed into an autonomous institution after it was handed over to African governments in 2003. Over the program's lifetime, critics have questioned its efficacy as well as its neocolonial aspects.
Varun Grover is an American Information systems researcher, who is the George & Boyce Billingsley Endowed Chair and distinguished professor at the Walton School of Business, University of Arkansas. From 2002-17, he was the William S. Lee Distinguished Professor of Information Systems at Clemson University, where he taught doctoral seminars on methods and information systems. He is consistently in the top 3 IS researchers in the world. He has an h-index of 100, among the top 5 in his field Grover has around 52,000 citations in Google Scholar and over 13,900 citations in Web of Science.
Stephen Robert Isabalija, is a Ugandan civil servant, management professional, accountant, academic and academic administrator. He is the immediate past permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development in Uganda, having served in that capacity from November 2016, until his termination on 24 August 2017.
Abdullahi Umar Ganduje is a Nigerian politician who served as the governor of Kano State from 2015 to 2023. He previously served as Rabiu Kwankwaso's deputy governor twice, from 1999 to 2003 and from 2011 to 2015. He is a member and national chairman of the ruling Party All Progressives Congress (APC).
John Tanimola Obaro is a Nigerian technology entrepreneur, public speaker, and founder of SystemSpecs Nigeria Limited.
Educational technology in sub-Saharan Africa refers to the promotion, development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), m-learning, media, and other technological tools to improve aspects of education in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1960s, various information and communication technologies have aroused strong interest in sub-Saharan Africa as a way of increasing access to education, and enhancing its quality and fairness.
The digital divide is a term used to describe the disadvantage in access to information which people without access to ICT suffer. Nigeria's digital divide refers to the inequality of Nigerian individuals, groups, or organizations with regard to access to Information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure or to the internet for daily activities. The digital divide has been attributed to many factors among which is the high cost of computer equipment, lack of ICT skill and poor knowledge of available search engines. Lack of access to ICT makes it difficult for people to access information. The benefits of having access to ICT are numerous. ICT has the potential to promote other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, education, health, bank, defence etc. In times of emergency, ICT becomes an indispensable tool for overcoming the barriers of time and distance. Education, lack of electrical infrastructure, income, urban drift, and a variety of other social and political factors contribute to Nigeria's growing digital divide.
Adenike Osofisan, is a Nigerian professor of Computer science, who specializes in data mining and knowledge management. She is the first Nigerian woman to hold a Ph.D. in Computer science, a feat she accomplished in 1989. In 2006, she became a full professor at University of Ibadan, a promotion that made her the first African woman to become a Computer Science professor.
Ibiyinka A. Fuwape is a Nigerian academic, professor in physics and the 2nd substantive Vice-Chancellor of the Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, a private university in Nigeria.
Mejai Bola Mike Avoseh is a professor of adult and higher education at the University of South Dakota. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of adult education, comparative/international/multi-cultural education and indigenous pedagogy. He is a member of the board of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) since 2016, and of the International Society for Comparative Adult Education (ISCAE) from 2020 to 2023, and the Director of the Commission for International Adult Education (CIAE) of AAACE.
ICT University is an accredited private university located in Yaounde, Cameroon. It aims to provide ICT and Managerial Human Capacity Development in developing countries.
Ezekiel Kalipeni was a Malawian geographer who specialized in population and environmental studies, medical geography, and Third World development issues. His research focused on sub-saharan Africa and the spread of pandemics in developing countries. He is most well known for his work in mapping and spatial analysis of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. In 2014 he was recognized as the Kwado-Konadu-Agyemang Distinguished Scholar in African Geography by the American Association of Geographers.
