Bakary Diallo – LINC 2016 Conference Speaker
Dr. Bakary Diallo has been working in the education sector for the past 25 years as an academic, a consultant, a project administrator, a researcher and a secondary school teacher. He joined the African Virtual University (AVU), an Intergovernmental Organization based in Nairobi Kenya, which specializes in Open Distance and eLearning, in August 2005. He held several senior positions within the organization before his appointment as the CEO/Rector in August 2007. His major achievement at AVU consists of leading the organization to become a respected player in open education and in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education in Africa.
The university successfully regained the confidence of stakeholders and adopted a business model that led to sustainability, increased impact and recognition in Africa and beyond. Under his leadership AVU attracted US $ 30 million to support capacity building in African countries and generated US $ 1. 2 million from business sales. The AVU has also made dramatic advances in the level and quality of programs offered, and outreach to the African continent through the OER@AVU repository. This knowledge-based repository was voted “Best Emerging OCWC Initiative” in 2011 and the “Most Progressive” in 2012 by the US based Education-Portal.com. AVU Atomic Physics textbook won the OCW Consortium Text Course Award for Excellence 2013. The repository has attracted more than 2 Million visitors from 201 countries.
Prior to joining the AVU, Dr. Diallo worked at the University of Ottawa as a part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Education and as a Consultant for Integration of ICT in Education at the Center for University Teaching. He taught at the Secondary Level in Senegal before joining the University of Ottawa in 1997. He holds a Master’s Degree and a PhD with a focus on the Integration of ICTs in higher education institutions from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Diallo advises on and is a member of several global organizations and initiatives including the Open Education Consortium, the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (IJ-SoTL), and the European Research Network for Emerging Technologies. He is also a frequent speaker at international conferences.
