About W.TEC

Mission and Vision | Our Work | Our People | Our Board | Our Supporters

Board of Trustees

W.TEC is guided in its work by its Board of Trustees, which is made-up of experts in the areas of Science and Engineering; Information, Communication and Technology for Development (ICT4D); Gender and Development; Law; Non-Profit Management; and Entrepreneurship.

Engr. Christiana Oyindamola Adelowo is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fechrad Nigeria Limited, a civil engineering company, which she set-up in 1986 to provide civil engineering services to various clients including Federal and State governments, parastatals and major oil companies.

Prior to setting-up her own firm, Engr. Adelowo worked as the Resident Manager and Chief Engineer of Etteh Aro & Partners, where she was extensively involved in infrastructure planning, design, construction management and the supervision of various challenging projects; as well as personnel management and staff development. Most notably, she supervised the construction work on the Ilorin University Teaching Hospital and for the Federal Ministry of Health.

Engr. Adelowo is a fellow and past National Vice President (2002 - 2003) of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, as well as a member of COREN. She has also been very active in the Association for Professional Women Engineers. She also mentors women in her community and is an Assistant Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Engr. Adelowo has a Masters degree in Highways and Transportation from City University, London, U.K and a Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where she graduated with honours.

Engr. Adelowo is serving as the Chairperson of W.TEC's Board of Trustees. She is married to Professor Femi Adelowo and they have three children.

Dr. Olatokunbo Somolu is the first woman head of the Engineering and Technology Division (ETD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). She is the Group General Manager, Engineering and Technology of the NNPC. Before this, Dr. Somolu was Manager of the Engineering Division supervising the construction of the NNPC headquarters in Abuja. In earlier years, she had supervised the building of the Satellite and Warri Depots, the Warri and Port Harcourt NNPC office buildings, as well as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) office complex in Lagos.

Prior to starting her career with NNPC, Dr. Somolu worked with Omisore, Afolabi & Partners, a group of consulting engineers, before which lectured at the Yaba College of Technology's department of Civil Engineering where she rose to become Department Head.

Dr. Somolu has a Doctorate in Structural Engineering from the University of Lagos, making her the first Nigerian woman to earn a doctorate in any field of engineering. She also has a Bachelors of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the same university, where she graduated at the top of her class.

Dr. Somolu has received many honours and awards for her professional excellence. She is a fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

Dr. Somolu is serving as the Secretary of W.TEC's Board of Trustees. She is married to Engr. Foluseke Somolu and they have three children.

Oreoluwa Somolu is the Executive Director of W.TEC. Prior to this, she worked as Project Manager of Youth Empowerment & Restoration Initiative, an NGO working to create career awareness among young Nigerians in senior secondary school, polytechnics and universities. She also worked as Training Coordinator at Lonadek Oil & Gas Consultants.

Ms. Somolu worked for several years in the United States at an educational non-for-profit organisation on a number of projects, which explored the interplay between gender and technology and which sought to attract more girls and women to study and work in science and technology-related fields.

She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Essex University, U.K. and a Masters degree in Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics & Political Science. Her research interests are the applications of technology in improving lifelong learning and also to raise the economic and social conditions of people (especially women and children) in the developing world.

Ms. Somolu's published works include 'Telling Our Own Stories: African Women Blogging for Social Change' (Gender & Development Journal, Nov 2007) and 'Making the Most of On-line Learning: An Introduction to Learning on the Internet' (Education Development Center, 2004).

Ibikunle Williams currently runs Pace Technologies, a company that provides information technology consultancy, solutions, training and Internet services to end users.

He has worked with DHL Nigeria and DHL West Africa as the Commercial Development Manager and Financial Systems Consultant respectively. Before this, he was employed with Guinness Nigeria as an Information Systems Development Manager. He has also worked as an Oracle Database Administrator with Tara Systems and is an Oracle Certified professional.

Mr. Williams is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a Sun Certified Java Programmer and Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer.

He has a Masters degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Lagos. He also has a Bachelors degree in Information Management with Accountancy from the University of Essex, UK.

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board provides a pool of expertise, advice and support for the organisation.

Dr. Abi Jagun is a Research Fellow in the Department of Management Science at the University of Strathclyde Business School.

Dr. Jagun worked until recently with the Association for Progressive Communications, as Africa Policy officer, and as a lecturer in the Institute for Development Policy Management at the University of Manchester. She has also worked in the Nigerian office of the international consultancy firm Accenture. Her research interest is in the impact of technology on society, particularly the ways in which mobile communications devices impact on socio-economic development.

She gained her Doctoral degree from the University of Strathclyde, U.K. in 2006 following research into telecommunications and the structure of economic organisations, focusing in particular on the textile sector in Nigeria. She also has a Masters in Operational Research from the University of Strathclyde, a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Cardiff, and a Bachelors degree in Botany from the University of Lagos.

Dr. Shirin Madon is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Dr Madon has been researching the impact of ICTs on planning and administration in India for the last 15 years. She is currently studying the development impact of a selection of e-governance projects in India. These projects relate to ICT usage for improving the administration and planning of rural development programmes: e-services applications; telecentre projects; and health information systems.

Dr. Madon has authored and edited many books and articles, most notably 2003's The Digital Challenge: Information Technology in the Development Context, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire (co-editor with S. Krishna) ), 1994's Designing Information Systems for Development Planning, (Alfred Waller, Oxon) and 1993's Information Technology Policies and Applications in the Commonwealth Developing Countries, (edited by G. Harindranath & Jonathan Liebenau, Commonwealth Secretariat, London (with M. Odedra) ).

Dr. Madon received her PhD from Imperial College, U.K. for her research on 'The Impact of Computer-based Information Systems on Rural Development.' She has a Masters degree in Information Technology from Kingston University, U.K from which she also graduated with a First Class Bachelors degree Economics.

Mrs. Adesuwa Onyenokwe is a broadcast journalist and current host of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) television show, Today's Woman with Adesuwa. Mrs. Onyenokwe is also the publisher of the magazine, Totally Whole as well as a presenter on the NTA programme, One-on-One, where she interviews prominent Nigerians.

Mrs. Onyenokwe started her broadcasting career during her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) year at NTA Sokoto, where she presented a children's programme. Following her service year, she moved to Edo Broadcasting Service (EBS), then Bendel Broadcasting Service, where she worked as a newscaster. This was followed by a transfer to NTA Lagos, where she worked as a reporter covering the social services, environment and health beats. She presented the NTA Sunday magazine show, Newsline, after which she retired from the NTA.

Mrs. Onyenokwe is the recipient of a 2002 Lead Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation and the 1994 Nigerian Media Merit Award for Reporter of the Year. She is an ardent supporter of women and women's issues and uses her show and magazines as platforms to inform, promote and advance causes of relevance to women.

Mrs. Onyenokwe has a Bachelors degree in Drama from the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife and a Masters degree in Language Arts from the University of Ibadan.

Engr. Florence Seriki is the Managing Director/CEO of Omatek Computers Limited, a Nigerian computer manufacturing company.

Mrs. Seriki's foray into programming began early in her career as a chemical engineer. Faced with poor results when running a set of simulations using old Fortran software, she was compelled to learn a new mathematical modeling language to complete the task.

This spurred her on to encourage Nigerians to become computer-literate. Noting that business executives took classes in golf or squash, she started to offer evening computer classes to executives. Since they trusted her as an instructor, they also trusted her when she began to sell computer hardware to them. In 1986, her company became a hardware seller as well as training organisation.

As she began selling hardware, she observed that the components were made by different companies - mostly from China - which were being assembled to build one complete system. This gave her the idea that an African company could do the same. She began making clones of Compaq computers, importing the parts from China and assembling them locally.

Mrs. Seriki has received several awards for her innovation in the Nigerian I.T. industry. Omatek has been recognized as the Best Systems Builder Partner by Microsoft for West, East, and Central Africa. In December 2008, Omatek Company will celebrate 22 years of operation.

Mrs. Seriki received an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and an MBA from the Lagos Business School.

'Gbenga Sesan is a social entrepreneur and information society researcher. He is currently Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, where he promotes and supports youth-led social entrepreneurship. His consulting experience includes assignments completed for numerous institutions, including United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Ethiopia), Res Publica (USA), International Telecommunications Union (Switzerland) and Computer Aid International (UK).

Mr. Sesan was the Vice Chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's African Technical Advisory Committee; pioneer Program Manager of the Lagos Digital Village (a Lagos State/Microsoft/Junior Achievement of Nigeria project). He was appointed as the youngest member of the Nigerian Presidential Task Force on the Restructuring of the Nigerian Information Technology and Telecommunications sectors in 2006. Mr. Sesan was Nigeria's first Information Technology Youth Ambassador.

Mr. Sesan has a Bachelors degree in Electronic Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, as well as a Masters degree in ICT Policy and Management from the University of Lagos. He will in September 2008 commence a doctoral program, exploring how ICTs can be used for economic transformation.

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