Biodata of Speaker:

Prof. Francisca Oladipo, is a Professor of Computer Science and pioneer Director, Quality Assurance, Federal University Lokoja (FUL), Nigeria. She was a member of the University’s Governing Council – the first female elected to the Council, and the first female Head of the Department of Computer Science at the University.

She is a Consultant at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences of Tilburg University, Netherlands, and had served previously at Kampala International University (KIU), Uganda as the Director of Research, Innovations, and International Relations.

Prof. Oladipo serves as the Chief Technical Advisor (Kogi) on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), and, Facilitator, Africa Centre of Excellence in Technology and Learning (ACETEL), National Open University of Nigeria. She also serves as a visiting Professor at the Pan-African University Institute of Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya and a PhD advisor at the Network for Globalization, Accessibility, Innovation and Care (GAIC) promoting the partnership between the Africa University Network (AUN) and European Universities.

Presently, she volunteers as the International Projects Synergy and Support Lead, for the NUFFIC Regional and Ethiopia Projects for KIU, and Dutch Partners. The two-part project is sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, is facilitated by e-learning and data sharing in the Horn of Africa to develop and implement eLearning Systems to strengthen Security and Rule of Law; Food and Nutrition, specifically in Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan, and Northern Ethiopia under the Dutch Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) Initiative.

As the Executive Coordinator of the Virus Outbreak Data Africa Network (VODAN Africa), she led the initiative to give Africa a place in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic through the deployment of the only first and only successful implementation of machine-actionable FAIR Data Points in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and the Netherlands. She is currently leading the expansion of the initiative into Tanzania, Somalia, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, China, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan. The initiative that was applauded in the 2021 UNESCO Engineering report achieved the VODANA Minimally Viable Product (MVP) through the installation of the MVP in 84 Health Facilities in 8 African countries and received the Award of the Most Inspiring Initiative at the Leiden Science Week in May 2022.

Prof. Francisca is one of the inaugural Fellows of the Pan-Africa Scientific Research Council, and a supporting partner of the Africa Universities Network on FAIR Open Science (AUN). a Grace Hopper Faculty Scholar and a fellowship alumna of the Heidelberg Laureate Foundation Germany, United States Department of State Exchange Program (TechWomen), Internet Engineering Task Force, the Women of Colour in Computing, Widening Natural Language Processing, Women in Machine Learning, Black in Artificial Intelligence, etc. She is a two-time recipient of the PyCon USA Grant, the ACM FAT Fellowship in 2019 and 2020, and the 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship of the ICML. She was a PostDoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an alumna of the prestigious Machine Learning Summer School, and has been trained in Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, and Data Science at the Institute of Analytics and Data Science, University of Essex, UK, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, and the University of Oxford.

Prof. Francisca has won many grants and co-authored several award-winning proposals for donor-founded projects including the Philip’s Foundation Grants, Google Rapid COVID-19 Grant, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs Orange Knowledge Program, Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship, Dutch Development Bank Grant for capacity Strengthening in Africa, etc.

In addition to developing innovative curriculum for multidisciplinary research, Francisca is bridging the gaps between research and practice in the areas of Theoretical Computer Science, and she has published numerous papers detailing her research experiences in both local and international journals and presented research papers in several international conferences. She is also a reviewer and editorial board member of many international scientific publications.

She was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of Thomas Adewumi University, Oko, Kwara State Nigeria on August 1 2022.

Synopsis of Lecture: