COMNET contributes in developing a industry-tailored Master's program in Ethiopia

The COMNET Department collaborated within the HEI ICI ENhANCE project with the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT) to develop a new communications engineering graduate curricula that is up-to-date and locally relevant. During this activities a requirement was noted to develop new program tailored to specific needs of the telecom industry in Ethiopia.

To that end, as part of AAiT’s industry linkage activities a program development team from AAiT in collaboration with COMNET-Aalto and other international partners developed an industry-tailored Telecommunications Engineering Master’s program for Ethio Telecom.

Ethio Telecom is a state-owned incumbent telecommunications company that is the sole provider of communications services in Ethiopia and has significant skills development needs for it’s over 20000 employees. The program is widely based on the graduate curricula developed for AAiT within the ENhANCE project, but also includes additional elements suited to local network operation needs. For instance, the program includes a green-ICT inspired Power Management course, due to the fact over 30% of the company’s operating expenditure is on energy related costs. The key overall rationale for the program is to produce locally trained experts to speed up rollout of Internet access and service adoption, as well as to contribute to Ethiopia’s current Growth and Transformation Plan.                                                                                            

The industry Telecommunications Engineering program was launched at a public workshop in Addis Ababa on 17th October 2015, attended by academics, industry stakeholders, management of Ethio Telecom and top government officials including the Deputy Prime Minister Economic Cluster head and Minster of ICT and Minister of Urban Development and Construction. The event was reported widely in local media outlets including the following below.

HEI ICI ENhANCE project (research.comnet.aalto.fi/enhance)
Ethio Telecom (ethiotelecom.et)

See also:

• Article in the Addis Fortune the largest English weekly newspaper (addisfortune.net)
• A news bulletins (in both English and Amharic) on Ethiopian Broadcast Corporation (EBC) the state-owned broadcaster with national coverage. The first English news report is from minute 02:55 of the video (ebc.et)

For further info on the HEI ICI ENhANCE project contact:

• Project Manager:
  Edward Mutafungwa
  edward.mutafungwa.at.aalto.fi
• Project Assistant:
  Beneyam B. Haile
  beneyam.haile.at.aalto.fi