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April-May
- Volume 1, Issue 3
"Actively
Engaged in the Development of ICT in Ethiopia"
Dr. Mohamed
Abdo, graduated from the AAU with B.Sc. Degree in Electrical Engineering
in 1980. After a brief period of teaching in the Electrical Department
of the University, he was sent to Italy for a postgraduate study
and earned his M.Sc. in Electronics Engineering from the Polytechnic
of Turin in 1986. He served as a Lecturer in the Department until
he won a scholarship to the then West Germany and obtained his Ph.
D. in Microwave Engineering from the University of Duisburg in 1994.
He secured a teaching job after his return; and is now serving as
Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of
the AAU.
Dr. Mohammed
Abdo, Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
elaborated past achievements, future plans and prospects for the
development of Computer Engineering Education within his Department
in general and the Computer Engineering Stream in particular.
ICT Focus:
How could we evaluate the progress of the Department in ICT education?
Dr. Mohammed: The Department is proud for having produced
almost all the electrical, electronic and computer engineers that
have been able to play important roles in the economic development
of the country. The Department has been offering computer related
courses such as communication and computer hardware and software
in order to enable them cope with the ever increasing sophistication
of the information technology in their field of specialization as
electrical engineers. In view of the growing demand, the Department
started a programme to graduate young professionals with B.Sc. degrees
specializing in the field of Computer Engineering.
ICT Focus:
What is the intake for the B.Sc. Programme in Computer Engineering?
Dr. Mohammed: In the first place, the maximum number of students
that are admitted to the Department does not surpass the level of
55 per year. On the other hand, the students of the Department have
to go through various stages of learning in the major disciplines
such as communication, power, computing, including hardware and
software, to balance the mix of knowledge before they specialize
in the field of computer Engineering proper. Therefore, the number
of graduates in computer science has been limited to an average
of 20 during the last four years of the inception of the programme.
ICT Focus:
Can you tell us something about the teaching processes in the Computer
Engineering stream?
Dr. Mohammed: As I said, the students of the Department take
ICT related courses through stages before they finally join their
respective streams chosen for specialization. For instance, all
students specializing in Computer Science take Introduction to Computing
and Computational Methods in their 3rd year, Logic Design and Computer
Architecture in 4th year while Introduction to Microprocessors and
Interfacing will be given as additional courses in their final year
of study. The Computer Engineering students, will then take additional
12 credit hour courses in their area of Computing.
ICT Focus:
Do you have the necessary teaching staff to run the programme in
full?
Dr. Mohammed: The Department presently has 20 qualified academic
staff including two expatriate members with many years of teaching
and research experience to undertake the teaching process of advanced
courses in the field of ICT and others in order to meet the requirements
of Government, business and industry. It has been able to graduate
more than 60 students during the past four years. We feel that this
is not still enough and we are in the process of increasing our
intake provided we can set additional staff and facilities.
ICT Focus:
Do you have adequate facilities, such as PCs, to ably conduct the
courses?
Dr. Mohammed: The Department has adequate facilities to properly
conduct the teaching processes for the current intake of its undergraduate
and postgraduate studies in Computer Engineering. There are more
than 62 networked computers loaded with various operating systems
in its computing laboratories and the Faculty's Computer Centre.
Out of these PCs, 11 are utilized as Servers. In addition, the offices
of the main departments have also been networked to facilitate the
communication of timely information.
ICT Focus:
Can you say that you have satisfied the labour market?
Dr. Mohammed: The demand for our graduates is still very
high and we could not satisfy the demands coming from the government,
NGO and the private sector for our graduates in computer Engineering.
In fact, our students are booked by some institutions in advance
of their graduation. For example, the graduates in 1999 were mostly
recruited by a few NGOs and the private business. There were also
some who opened and run their own successful ICT businesses. The
graduates in 2000 joined private ICT companies such as High Tech
Pack, Concept Data System and Cyber Soft immediately upon graduation
and have been able to impart their skills to the success of these
companies in their ICT ventures.
ICT Focus:
What are your future plans?
Dr. Mohammed: As I said, the demand for computer engineering
graduates of the Department is very high, and we have not so far
met the ever growing demands coming from prospective employers both
in the civil service and the private business. We have, therefore,
planned to raise our yearly intake from the present level to 30
per year in the immediate future. The construction of the building
will start soon and additional facilities to
successful implementation of the project. It was one of the four
African countries selected for a grant of fund from the Australian
Government to launch a programme of distance education. Four Australian
universities were involved in the selection of prospective universities
from the four African universities - among which the Addis Ababa
University was one. The happy result was that all the participating
universities from Australia in the selection process for the launching
of the distance learning programme chose the Addis Ababa University.
If one of the Australian universities won the fund, the Addis Ababa
University would definitely be launching the distance learning programme.
The University Management can give you more information on this
issue than what I can tell you now.
ICT Focus:
What is your view of the development of the information and communication
technology in Ethiopia?
Dr. Mohammed: The 'information' can be anything but the 'communication'
can only be "electrical engineering communication." Moreover,
the 'technology' is within 'engineering.' This means that ICT is
the natural outgrowth of the electrical engineering discipline.
Electrical engineering includes such disciplines as Electric Power
Engineering, Control Engineering, Electronics, Instrumentation Engineering,
Communication Engineering, Computer Engineering, etc. Hence, the
last two disciplines, i.e., Communication Engineering and Computer
Engineering naturally make up the science of ICT. Therefore, Electrical
Engineering does not only play a key role in the development of
ICT, but we can neither perceive Electrical Engineering in isolation
from ICT nor can ICT grow without it as its base. That is why the
specialization in computer engineering in the Department starts
at the 4th year after students eligible for the stream have taken
relevant courses. Computer engineering is either the domain of the
Electrical Engineering Department or a specialized entity in almost
all universities in Europe and America. Otherwise, as there is no
Technology Faculty without Electrical Engineering, there can be
no Computer Engineering without Electrical Engineering and Electrical
Engineering without Computer Engineering. I can say that, in Ethiopia
too, electrical engineers immediately filled the gap for the demand
of ICT professionals at the beginning of the introduction of computers
into Ethiopia. In this regard, the Department is planning to hold
a symposium in mid June with the theme "The Role of Electrical
and Computer Engineering for ICT Development in Ethiopia"
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