Empowering Africa’s Next Generation Engineers With IEEE

I receive many emails from people who ask to contribute to Spectrum ieee. Usually they want to write an article for us. But a daring request that I received in January 2024 went much further: a undergraduate engineering student named Oluwatosin Kolade, from Obafemi Awolowo University, in Ile-IFẹ̀, Nigeria, volunteered to be our editor in robotics.

KOLADE – TOSIN to his friends – was the editor -in -chief of his IEEE students’ branch, but he had never published an article professionally. His seriousness and his enthusiasm were endearing. I explained that we already have a robotic publisher, but I would be happy to work with him on writing, edition and finally publish an article.

In 2003, I had met many engineering students when I went to Nigeria to report on the Sat-3 / WASC cable, the first submarine-optical cable to land in West Africa. I remember seeing the students gather around obsolete PC in cafes in the world via a satellite dish powered by a generator. I challenged Tosin to say Spectrum Readers what is that for engineering students today. The result is “the lessons of a Janky drone”.

I decided to complete Tosin’s play with the prospect of a more established engineer in sub -Saharan Africa. I contacted G. Pascal Zachary, who covered engineering teaching in Africa for us, and Zachary introduced me to the Bainomugisha engineer, computer teacher at the University of Makerere, in Kampala, in Uganda. In “Learn more with less”, Bainomugisha draws things that were common to his experience in Tosin and suggest the means to make the material necessary for education in engineering more accessible.

In fact, the fight of several decades in the region to develop its engineering talents is based on access to the three things on which we focus in this issue: reliable electricity, ubiquitous broadband and educational resources for young engineers.

“During my weekly video calls with Tosin … The connection was quite good – except when it was not the case.”

Zachary’s article in this issue, “What will really need to electrify all of Africa“” The first subject is addressed, emphasizing an ambitious initiative to bring electricity to 300 million additional people by 2030.

Is the article by the editor-in-chief of Lucas Laursen, “in Nigeria, why is broadband everywhere?” Survey of the slow deployment of fiber optics connectivity over the past two decades since my first visit. As he learned when he went to Nigeria earlier this year, the country now has eight submarine cables offering 380 capacity terabits, but less than half of the population has wide-band access.

I had an idea of ​​the bandwidth problems of Nigeria during my weekly video calls with Tosin to discuss his article. The connection was quite good, except when it was not the case. However, I remembered two decades ago, these calls would have been almost impossible.

Thanks to these weekly discussions, we have established a professional connection, which made him much more significant when I met Tosin in person last May at the IEEE ICRA robotics conference in Atlanta. Tosin was assisted thanks to a scholarship from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Like a child in a candy store, he has Kibbutz with his winning colleagues, attended in talks, checked the robots and met the engineers who built them.

While Tosin embarks on the next stage of his career career, he is supported by the IEEE community, which not only recognizes his promise but gives him access to a network of professionals who can help him and his cohort, to achieve their potential.