Creating technology leaders and innovators in Africa
- Wits University
Afretec Faculty Enrichment Program provides an opportunity to learn and share effective teaching methods and approaches.
As part of the now-established African Engineering and Technology Network (Afretec), Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa), in collaboration with Wits University held its annual Faculty Enrichment Program in October 2023.
The 2023 CMU-Africa Faculty Enrichment Program aimed to support instructors in Computer Science and provide an opportunity to both learn and share effective teaching methods and approaches.
The Program consisted of two parts, with the first virtual 4-day program (9 – 12 October 2023) inviting participants to explore innovative, evidence-based pedagogy and course design practices.
The second part 3-day program took place from 25 to 27 October 2023 where a selected group of 32 participants attended an in-person Facilitator Training event held at Wits to learn to facilitate the workshops at their own institutions.
Participants were from Wits University and all the other Afretec network partners, including the American University in Cairo, the University of Lagos, the University of Nairobi, the University of Rwanda, and CMU-Africa.
In exchange for attending the program, each university commits to facilitating at least one workshop at their institution within six months of attending the program.
In Part 2, participants learned how to adapt and facilitate the workshops from Part 1 to their own universities with the aim of increasing impact and building capacity within the network.
Given Afretec’s objective to create technology leaders and innovators in the ICT sector to
drive inclusive digital transformation in Africa, the Faculty Enrichment Program’s target
audience is faculty working in the ICT sector. Each year, the Faculty Enrichment Program will target a different ICT-related discipline.
This year, colleagues in Computer Science (e.g., programming, data structures and algorithms, database systems, software engineering or design, machine learning, etc.) were invited to participate.
In particular, the aim was to build capacity among postgraduate students and junior faculty, who have less than five years of teaching experience. The facilitators of both the virtual and in-person workshops were:
- Dr Lexi Adams (CMU -Africa)
- Dr George Okeyo (CMU Africa)
- Professor Rodney Genga (EBE Wits)
- Nozuko Makhuvha (CLTD Wits)
- Dr Nazira Hoosen (CLTD Wits)
- Fatima Rahiman (CLTD Wits)