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Building Collaborative Research Capacity in Uganda

Building Collaborative Research Capacity in Uganda. John Nerbonne, Dutch Director Building ICT Research Capacity in Uganda EuroAfrica ICT FP7 Awareness Workshop 20 Oct 2008. Strengthening ICT Research & Training Capacity in the Public Universities. Phase I (2004-2008) Infrastructure

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Building Collaborative Research Capacity in Uganda

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  1. Building Collaborative Research Capacity in Uganda John Nerbonne, Dutch Director Building ICT Research Capacity in Uganda EuroAfrica ICT FP7 Awareness Workshop 20 Oct 2008

  2. Strengthening ICT Research & Training Capacity in the Public Universities • Phase I (2004-2008) • Infrastructure • Education • Collaboration among universities, ICT industry, government • Phase II • Staff development • Research

  3. Why Research? • Research leads to deeper understanding, a goal with intrinsic value • ICT development creates wealth, & research capabilities needed in development • Techniques often “off the shelf” but with modification • Example: Google’s famous page-rank algorithm

  4. Background Vision • Translate: • Building ICT Research Capacity => Fostering Collaboration Dutch-Uganda ICT Research • Research capacity is hard to build, fragile • Focus on long-term collaboration • Promote cooperation • Aim for broad base of groups, not individual projects • Ph.D. students – Dutch & Ugandan -- help each other

  5. Philosophy • Build research capacity through collaboration • Learn (research) by doing • Collaboration mutually beneficial • Mutually beneficial collaborations sustainable • Success means collaborations and co-publications for 5-10 years • We’re working with Uganda

  6. Operationalization • Aim for 10 groups of 3 Ph.D. students each • Each with Dutch, Ugandan supervisors • One Ph.D. student works in NL, two in Uganda • Involve all public universities in Uganda 60% Makerere, 40% Gulu, Kyambogo, Mbarara • NL projects: 3 yr, NL; 1 yr. Uganda • Ugandan proj.: 3 yr. w. annual 2-mon. visits

  7. Baryamureeba Lubega Rai Quenum Ogao Quinn Mekuria Ssewanyana Bagaya Williams Muyingi Nerbonne Van den Brand Valentijn Aiello Van der Aalst Biehl, Wilkinson Jacobs Van der Weide Renardel Sol Vaandrager Excellent Senior Scientists

  8. Research Achievements – Phase I • Six Ph.D.’s • John Ngubiri, 9/2008 • 2009-2010: Geoffrey Andogah, Benjamin Kanagwa, Josephine Nabukenya, Julienne Sansa, Florence Tushabe • Dozens of publications, including co-publications • Best student paper award (Tushabe), competitive “shared-task” result (Andogah)

  9. Candidate Selection, Phase II • Competitive • Transcripts, References, Project Sketches, Presentations, Interviews. Aug. 2007 • 8 Dutch groups selected (of approx. 15) • 8 Ugandan groups

  10. Variety of Research Lines • Software Engineering • (Geographic/Business) Information Systems • Security • E-Learning • Pattern Recognition • Sensor Networks • Language Technology • Service-Oriented Computing • Process Mining • Grid Computing • XML • Agent Technologies

  11. Scientific Opportunities • Eight collaborative research lines • 11 Dutch professors • 8 Ugandan senior researchers • 29 energetic Ph.D. candidates • 4 years to establish collaboration • Co-publications • Other projects

  12. More Information • Project “wiki” http://www.let.rug.nl/uganda/ • Enabling exchange of information • Sketches of NL, Ugandan research groups, Ph.D. projects • News

  13. EU Experience • Lots of experience with EU projects in Dutch consortium, incl. Groningen, Eindhoven, Radboud (Nijmegen) • Nerbonne coordinated two EU projects • Glosser 1996-1998 Copernicus program, € 250K, automated dictionary access • Learning Computational Grammars, 2000-2002, Marie Curie Network, €1,2 Mil., applying machine learning to language technology

  14. A Personal Note • Motivation includes • Cooperativeness, to help where possible • But also • Scientific ambition, to achieve more scientifically through cooperation • Scientific, professional motivation essential Tufanye hiki pamoja!

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