Dr. Jema David Ndibwile / Merlin Kull
An outstanding collaboration between DIGI-FACE & CENIT@EA for a fast and easy communication within the African Excellence community
The current Covid situation underlines the great demand for mobile solutions once more: Learning, research, communication and information exchange at African institutions and their students mainly take place on smartphones. Additionally, due to low bandwidth and instable Wi-Fi connections, learners and teachers are not continuously connected to the internet and need mobile as well as offline learning possibilities. With the development of a mobile application, the opportunity to connect, work, teach, research and publish on mobile devices, to continue offline (especially on Moodle) and to create the crucial basis for communication and networking among the members of the African Centres of Excellence (CoE) will be provided. The DIGI-FACE Mobile App will enrich the African Excellence network with a tool enhancing communication and networking among the members of the CoE. The App is envisioned to push the objectives of DIGI-FACE as well as the general African Excellence programme while taking into consideration the needs of the members of the CoE. The App will promote mobile learning, facilitate the accessibility of the platform, enhance digital networking among the CoE and with other partners as well as connect the cross-sectoral skills of students, graduates, alumni, teachers and researchers in Africa.
The mobile app will include the same function and the same look and feel as the web platform. In addition, the platform functions will be extended by phone specific features, like chatting, notifications and geo-localisation.
Since autumn 2020, the colleagues of CENIT@EA (Centre of Excellence for Information and Communication Technologies in East Africa) through the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) with its specific expertise in ICT and mobile embedded systems started the development work in close collaboration with the DIGI-FACE platform developers in Port-Elizabeth.
Currently, the development is ongoing and the testing phase will roll out in the next weeks. The live-going is planned for summer. You will be kept updated on the progress and informed once the app is available for use and ready to be downloaded in the respective App Stores for Android and iPhones.
The App developer team members at NM-AIST are:
- Dr. Michael Kisangiri – Project Manager
- Dr. Mussa Ally – Deputy Project Manager
- Dr. Jema David Ndibwile – Technical Team Leader/Developer
- Mr. Avik Dutta – Developer
- Mr. Christopher Kikoti – Developer
- Mr. Yahya Maalim – User Interface and User Experience
- Ms. Joyce Martin – Testing, analysis and documentation
- Dr. Ramadhani Sinde – Testing and quality assurance
App surface and appearance on mobile phones
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