 | Dr. Mohamed A. Ahmed Senior Instructional Designer & Lecturer, Education Technology Department, Faculty of Education, Mansoura University, EgyptI have been working in the E-Learning Center at Mansoura University since 2007 as senior instructional designer and team leader for the Instructional Design team. My research interests include e-learning quality assurance, Learning Management Systems and instructional design for online courses. I graduated from Al-Azhar University’s Education Technology Department in 2005. I obtained diplomas in both Education Technology and Computer Science and have been involved in e-learning for over 10 years. I coordinate E-Learning Magazine, the first E-Learning Magazine in Middle East. Contact: [email protected] |
 | Dr Jerome Terpase Dooga English Lecturer, Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Jos, NigeriaI am the e/merge Africa Regional Coordinator for West Africa and Commonwealth of Learning (COL) eLearning consultant to the School of Education at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). I train fellow academics in Jos in the eLearning Fellowship programme to use technology for teaching and research. I hold a PhD in English and received postgraduate training in Educational Technology at the University of Cape Town. I have presented research papers at various fora in a range of African countries including eLearning Africa in Dakar (2009), Lusaka (2010), Windhoek (2013), Kampala (2014) and Addis Ababa (2015), the ICEL conference, Cape Town (2013), Emerging Technologies, Cape Town (2015). I have published widely in the field and am co-author and editor of a new book on technology in African Higher Ed I have won scores of national and international awards for e-learning. Contact: [email protected] |
 | Gabriel Konayuma Senior Vocational Education and Training Officer, Ministry of Higher Education, ZambiaI hold a BA in Education from the University of Zambia (1992), an MBA from the Management College of Southern Africa learning (2007) and a Masters degree in Educational Technology from the University of Cape Town. My dissertation was on challenges and enablers of e-learning policy implementation in vocational training in Zambia. I have taught Mathematics and Computer Studies to secondary school students and Computer Science, Mathematics and Management Information Systems at the Copperbelt University. I have worked as a Curriculum Developer at the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority. I currently serve as a Senior Vocational Education and Training Officer in the Ministry of Higher Education in Zambia. My key responsibilities are entrepreneurship development promotion and promotion of open and distance learning. I have presented papers at various international conferences. Contact: [email protected] |
 | Tony Carr Convener of e/merge Africa and educational technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape TownI have lived in Durban, London and Cape Town. After an earlier career as a Business and Economics educator a fascination with online interaction led to my work since 2000 as an educational technologist. My operational and research interests include online collaboration, communities of practice in staff development, online facilitation and online professional networks. In 2014 I received a Dewey Winburne Community Service Award. I have co-authored the OER Facilitating Online Guide for Course Leaders. I developed the Facilitating Online course in year which I also convene. Contact: [email protected]@tony_emerge |
 | Dr Alice Barlow-Zambodla e/Merge Africa Network Regional Coordinator for Southern and East AfricaI have a multi-disciplinary background in Agriculture, Botany and ICTs for education resulting in lecturing and research experience totalling more than 25 years at the Universities of Transkei and Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa. My more recent experiences involve working as a Programme Specialist for 7.5 years at SAIDE, an educational research and development NGO. This work involved working with various tertiary institutions on the continent focussing mainly on open and distance learning programmes, the development and use of open education resources, ICTs for Education and development, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of educational interventions. In my capacity as a Vodacom Change the World volunteer 2014-2016 I have been working with the Buffelshoek Trust to set up and capacitate 11 ICT Centres situated at 9 rural schools in Bushbuckridge Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa. Contact: [email protected] |
 | Jakob Pedersen Project Manager for e/merge Africa, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape TownI am based at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. I graduated with an MA in Information Studies in 2006 from the University of Aarhus, Denmark before relocating to South Africa. My research interests include e-learning, MOOCs and online courses, Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Science, Society and Technology Studies (STS). Outside of my project management duties I provide research assistance to educational technology research projects at other tertiary institutions. I have been involved with educational technology in various ways for the past ten years. Contact: [email protected] |
| Facilitators | |
 | Irene Maweu I have been an online facilitator since 2008 and co-facilitator for the e/merge Africa Facilitating Online course since 2016. I have a lot of experience in online and face2face facilitation, online courses, workshop/meetings and training designs, content development and online learning. I was part of contributors/curators of the community building activities https://onehe.org/equity-unbound/ . I have been involved in blended and online learning and content development mainly in education, health and agriculture sectors and have many years in many forms of human capacity development. I am a member and leadership team of e/merge Africa Network, a member and advisor of the Global Conscious Peacemakers, a member of International Association of Facilitators (IAF) , part of eLearning in Development implementation (ELDI) and member of Guidelines International Network (GIN) I love Music and have a great passion in all forms of facilitation, travelling, meeting and connecting with people. Lets connect on Twitter @wavinya66 |
 | Dr.Ralitsa Debrah I am a design educator/ researcher at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), South Africa. I play an active role in several design and education related organisations such as: e/Merge Africa, Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Network; Design Research and Activity Workgroup/ network (DRAWn CPUT and KNUST), Network of Afrikan Designers (NAD), Pan Afrikan Design Institute (PADI), Ghana Institute of Graphic Artists (GhiGha); DesignGhana; and serve as the Afrikan Ambassador to Open Design Afrika (ODA) organisation, in Cape Town, South Africa. My research interests include: Educational Technology, Gamification, Service Design, Communication Design, within Trans-disciplinary settings. I have worked on several design and education related projects on sustainability in both Afrikan and European settings such as C-San-Futures, INDEHELA ISD4D, LeNSes, EU Party Project and Open Educational Resources (OER), KNUST, Ghana. I co-facilitate the e/merge Africa Facilitating Online course. I am looking forward to engage with fellow researchers and explore possibilities of future research collaborations. I am a futurist, a lifelong learner, I love people and connecting. Contact: [email protected] Twitter: @RalitsaDebrah |
 | Catherine FortuneI am a freelance e-Learning Consultant and Learning Designer, a member of the e/merge Africa core team and co-facilitate the Facilitating Online Course. Prior to this I worked at UCT as a Senior Content Architect in Systems Division at the ICTS Department working primarily with metadata and information architecture services, UCT Mobile and UCT Administrative Forms.I have extensive experience in the field of education, having taught in a primary school, high school and community centre for 11 years before focusing on learning in the online space. I have more than 20 years’ experience working as an e-learning curriculum designer and online learning content developer with special focus on content design and online assessment, as well as creating a modularised curriculum package for school learners and adults which is currently being used in more than 40 African and other countries around the world and has been translated into multiple languages. My current interests in online learning focusses on curriculum development and design, online learning content authoring, learning design, online assessment, virtual learning environments and NGDLE, online facilitation, training and support. My focus is to research and adapt available technologies in the pursuit of providing relevant, engaging, comprehensive and informative content packaged into contextually appropriate, user-friendly, intuitive delivery systems and media in the interest of enhancing learning and streamlining the user experience.I am also a trained musician and play various instruments, enjoy photography and spoon collecting. I enjoy making new connections and networking with others. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter @cathfortune |
