African Virtual University
AVU / INTRODUCTION
African Virtual University (AVU) is a Pan African Intergovernmental Organization whose aim is to significantly increase access to quality higher education and training through the innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies.
The AVU was established in 1997 when eLearning was still in its infancy in the West and has since trained more than 43,000 students and established the largest network of Distance and eLearning institutions in over 30 African Countries. AVU works across borders and languages in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa.
The OER@AVU portal (http://oer.avu.org) has won global recognition. The portal was voted the “Most Progressive” resource in the Education-Portal.com People’s Choice Awards in 2012 and was recognized as the ”Best Emerging OCW Initiative” in 2011. The AVU is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with a regional office in Dakar, Senegal.
AVU CONFERENCE NOTE
The African Virtual University (AVU) will hold its 2nd International Conference from the 1st to the 3rd of July 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya at Crowne Plaza.
This will be the second conference of the AVU and like the first conference in 2013.
2013 participants came mainly from the AVU network of Partner Institutions in more than 30 African countries, and also from other African institutions and from institutions in Europe, Asia and America. Some of the speakers from the 2013 conference included: the AVU Rector, Ms. Fenny W. S. Mwakisha, the Director of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education, Kenya, Dr Beatrice Njenga from the African Union Commission (AUC), Daphne Koller, Stanford University Professor of Computer Science and Co-Founder and co-CEO of Coursera and Professor Chiedu Mafiana of the Nigerian University Commission. The AVU advisory committee made up of deputy-vice chancellors (DVCs), academics and national coordinators from member countries ministries of education were also part of the conference as well as AVU strategic partners.
The 2nd International AVU conference will bring together researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to make sense of the challenges and explore emerging opportunities afforded by ICTs and open, distance and e-learning (ODeL) in addressing issues of access, equity and quality of higher education and training in Africa.
The conference is expected to bring together over 100 participants from across Africa and beyond to discuss opportunities and challenges of integration of eLearning and Open Education to increase access to quality education and training. The theme this year will be ”Linking Open Education and eLearning Research to Practice” with a focus on MOOCs, OERs and Mobile Learning. Speakers for the 2015 conference will include the AVU Reector, Dr Bakary Diallo, Pr Peck Cho (Center for teaching and learning, Dongguk University in Korea), Pr Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams (Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at University of Cape town), Larry Cooperman (Associate Dean University of California, Irvine USA), Sophie Touze (Board member of the Open Education Consortium, France), Stavros Panagiotis Xantthopoylos (Vice Dean, Executive Educational Unit at Fundacao Getulio Vargas).
