Speakers
Abdul-Hakem Bolade Dirisu Ajijola, Partner, Consultancy Support Services Ltd.
Facilitator
Abdul-Hakem Bolade Dirisu Ajijola is a Partner in Consultancy Support Services Ltd., a Nigeria-based ICT, Human Resources and Organization Development consultancy firm, and a member of the Council of Regional Advisors for West and Central Africa of IDRC (International Development Research Centre).
He disengaged in mid 2006 as the first ever Special Assistant Information Communication Technology to the National Security Adviser to the President and Commander-in-Chief (Nigeria). Before that he founded and was the CEO of Digital Information Systems Company Limited, 1988-2000, a pioneer ICT firm in Nigeria. From 1985-1988, he worked with the National Geographic Society in the United States of America.
He is particularly interested in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy; ICTs and Cyber-Security; and empowering others to constructively advance.
Bibi Bahara-Yusuf, Cassava Republic Press
Keynote speaker
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is a publisher based in Abuja, Nigeria. She started Cassava Republic Press in 2006. Her company is focused on publishing quality African books for all ages at an affordable price. Cassava Republic is both a commercial and a social enterprise, driven by the dream to redevelop a reading and writing culture in Nigeria, as part of the bigger project of re-imagining Nigeria’s future and being part of an African cultural and intellectual renaissance. The influential international design magazine Monocle listed Cassava Republic as one of the top global brands to watch out for in 2009. Cassava Republic authors have won many international literature awards, including the Caine Prize, the Orange Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
In 2008, Bibi was one of only twenty on the continent to be selected to be part of the Desmond Tutu African Leadership programme. Prior to setting up Cassava Republic, Bibi was an academic in the UK and Nigeria. She has a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Warwick. Her thesis explored the relationship between embodiment and memory in the African diaspora, examining structures of retention found in New World cultures. She has published many papers in prestigious refereed journals, and regularly presents papers at academic conferences. She sits on the editorial board of a number of influential journals and is a life-long and committed feminist.
Robert Cornford, Oxfam
Case study presenter
Robert Cornford is currently a Communications Manager in the Policy and Practice Communications Team of Oxfam GB, where he works on the promotion and marketing of Oxfam's materials (both online and print) for development professional audiences. He has worked for Oxfam since 1990 in various publishing-related posts. Before that he worked for 21 years in commercial publishing including 17 years for Longman in the UK, Southern Africa and the USA. He is a graduate in History and English from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
He has been working for the past two years on a major project which had digitised a lot of Oxfam's backlist, established a digital repository (the Oxfam iLibrary) holding over 3,000 records and growing, and is developing an interactive website to make all this content available and useful to professional users. He is particularly interested in the creation and dissemination of information for social change, and in the different 'push' and 'pull' models used by organisations working in the field. And, of course, he is interested in how digital communications can give a global voice to people working locally - freeing local research and knowledge from the computer C drive and putting it onto the web and in front of a global audience.
Dr. Linus Ikpaahindi, recently-retired National Librarian of Nigeria
Speaker
Dr. Linus Ikpaahindi was born in Korinya, Benue State, where he attended St. Joseph’s Primary School from 1959 to 1965, then St James’ Seminary in Keffi until 1970. While working at the Nigerian Ports Authority he obtained his "A" levels, and then went to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from 1974-1977. His further study was at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (Masters in Librarianship, 1981) and University of Pittsburgh (PhD in Library and Information Science, 1985)
Dr. Ikpaahindi has worked in both Nigeria and the United States, including at libraries in the Universities of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, at the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation, and at the National Library of Nigeria where he was Director General and CEO from 2004 until his retirement in 2010. Dr. Ikpaahindi has been active in Nigeria Library Association for many years, and was, in 1995, founder Chair of the Information Technology Section of the Association. He has represented Nigeria at many international fora including the World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005) and the Information For All programmes of UNESCO.
Dr. Ikpaahindi is married to Victoria and they have seven children.
Barrister Inye Kemabonta, Director of Standards and Regulations, Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)
Speaker
Barrister Inye Kemabonta is Director of Standards and Regulation at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and will be taking the place of Dr Cleopas Angaye, who has been called out of the country for a couple of weeks.
Inye Kemabonta is currently the Director, Standards and Regulation in Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). He is both an Attorney and a certified Information Technology Network Engineer. In the last 10 years, he has been actively involved in the development and implementation of Information Technology policies and laws. He has worked both in the Legislative and Executive Arms of Government.
As Director Standards and Regulation in NITDA, he is now responsible for coordinating a broad-based, national IT governance structure for the development of Information Technology Standards and Guidelines for Nigeria.
Divine Fuh, Langa’a Initiative
Case study presenter
Divine Fuh is the Secretary of Langaa RPCIG, a responsibility in which he has served since the founding of Langaa in 2006. He also served as Langaa's first Managing Editor until 2009. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Basel, Switzerland, and is currently researching questions of youth identities, prestige and the urban in 'Africa' and 'Europe'.
Sandra Obiago, Communicating for Change
Case study presenter
Ms. Sandra Mbanefo Obiago has worked as founding Executive Director of Communicating for Change, www.cfcnigeria.org, since 1998. She specializes in development communications, documentary film, and photo-journalism. She is a social activist whose documentaries and short dramas have focused on issues of human rights, women’s empowerment, health and HIV and AIDS, environment, democracy, and good governance.
She has previously worked as a Technical Director for Limelight Studios and as a Producer/Reporter for the European Business Channel in Switzerland, as well as Africa Communications Manager for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), where she set up a pan-African Communications Network. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Nigerian National Film Institute and has served as a member of the jury of the Nigeria Media Merit Awards and the African International Film Festival (AFRIFF) awards. Obiago has focused on developing Nigeria’s creative industries, organizing many conferences, workshops, and symposia for Nigeria’s growing film industry including The Future of Development Film in Africa Conference in Lagos in 2005 & 2008. She helped develop a course on Media Enterprise at the Pan African University (Lagos Business School), becoming a freelance instructor in 2007. She is a trustee of the Convention on Business Integrity (CBI), one of Nigeria’s foremost business ethics organisations.
Obiago is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute Africa Leadership Initiative for West Africa (ALIWA); she received an M.A. in Telecommunications from Michigan State University, and a B. Ed. from the University of Manitoba, in Canada.
Besides being involved in community initiatives and artistic endeavours, she has served as Sunday school teacher since her teens. She is happily married with three children.
Jeremy Weate, co-founder of Cassava Republic Press
Case study presenter
A creative thinker, writer and strategist, Jeremy has twelve years experience in the public and private sectors and excellent knowledge of Nigeria after seven years of in country work experience. He has also worked in the UK, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Jeremy cut his teeth as a consultant during the dotcom boom in the late 90s and early noughties, working for top flight digital consultancies - Razorfish, Oyster and Syzygy (all of which are still around and thriving). His private sector clients during this time included Daimler Chrysler, Orange, NatWest, BT, Mazda and Shell.
His work in the public sector has been as a development consultant, with a developing speciality in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. He has led EITI Validation missions to Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Mozambique and spent over two years as the in-house programme manager for DFID's support for NEITI.
Jeremy is a Prince2 certified project manager. He also has a sideline as a trainer, having led workshops and courses in organisational thinking, leadership, business creativity, effective business writing and screenwriting.
He is the author of a popular book on philosophy for children, "A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy" published in 1998 by Dorling Kindersley (and translated into 8 languages). He is currently writing a book on Nigeria. He has also been working for the past five years on two long-term philosophical book projects, one on memory, the other on invisibility. He is also working on a documentary film project, on contemporary Yoruba identity across the Yoruba diaspora.
Jeremy Weate is the co-founder of Cassava Republic Press, www.cassavarepublic.biz, based in Abuja, Nigeria. He is also the author of a popular blog, www.naijablog.co.uk.