DR. JOSEPH SEVILLA

Founder, @iLabAfrica

Dr Joseph Sevilla is the founder and first Director of @iLabAfrica, a research centre at Strathmore University (Nairobi, Kenya), as well as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Information Technology. He graduated as an Industrial Engineer (Universidad del País Vasco, Spain) and holds an MSc in Computer Science (University College London, UK) and a PhD in Bioinformatics (TECNUN, Universidad de Navarra, Spain). Dr Sevilla is a member of the British Computer Society, the Safaricom Innovation Board, Chairman of the Document Description and Processing Languages Technical Committee of the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KBS) and a member of the Council of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA). While in Strathmore he has held the office of Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology and member of the University’s Management Board. In 1991, he founded the Information Technology Centre (ICT) at Strathmore and served as its first Director. Dr Sevilla has participated in a number of committees established by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Research, Technical Training and Technology, and the Ministry of Information and Communications; he has advised the Kenyan Government and the ICT Board on the drafting of national policies in ICT education, the national syllabus for Computer Studies in schools and the adoption of a national ICT strategy. He has also acted as an advisor to the Kenyan Directorate of Industrial Training in issues related to computer training. Dr Sevilla’s interests cover: ITC in Education and Development, IT Security, Mobile Computing, eLearning, Managerial Decision Modelling, Bioinformatics and FOSS applications.