Dr. Yetunde Folajimi FBCS
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Dr. Yetunde Folajimi is a Computer Science lecturer at University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a Research Fellow at Northeastern University USA. She is also the Leader of University of Ibadan Intelligent Systems Group. With specialization in Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Folajimi’s research is predominantly directed at Serious Games and E-Learning with a special interest in their applications for health and safety education, adult education, Child Education, youth empowerment and women empowerment.
Dr. Folajimi is a recipient of many international awards including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award (2009), the Commonwealth Professional Fellowship award (2012), the Institute of International Education (IIE) Women Enhancing Technology (WeTech) Award (twice in 2014), the WeTech Leadership Council Award (2015) and the Schlumberger Fellowship Award (2015). She has been a Research Fellow at University of British Columbia, Canada (2009), University of Pittsburgh USA (2010), De Montfort University UK (2012) and Northeastern University USA (2015-2016) and has delivered papers at various conferences/workshops and events; having over 30 referred publications to her credit. She is a Fellow of British Computer Society (BCS), the Chair of Ibadan Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Chapter and belongs to many national and international Organizations including Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) - past Executive Council Member, Computing Professionals Reg. Council of Nigeria (CPN), Association for Learning Technology (ALT)- Membership Services Committee member, IEEE Computer Society etc. Funded by the Schlumberger Foundation Faculty For the Future Award, Dr Folajimi's postdoctoral research at Northeastern University aims to provide a framework and engine that specifies how to tailor educational game content to players and to create a positive attitude change about Computer Science among middle school audience especially girls. The results provide a framework for a game that teaches computational thinking and the relevance of computer science. The engine’s performance and effectiveness will be evaluated with computational and empirical experiments. By leveraging on her international experience and global network, Dr Folajimi uses novel perspectives in Computer Science and Game Artificial Intelligence to solve prevailing challenges among vulnerable groups in Nigeria, especially the youth, women and children. Driven by a special passion to give back to the society, what she herself benefited through mentoring, she regularly impacts the new generation of girls and women whom she mentors through events like regular summer camps, hackathons, training programs and mentoring by engaging them in activities that enable them practice and create projects of their own, thereby addressing the low self-confidence which is a critical factor that discourage women and girls from being part of ICT professions. In order to realize her goals, Dr Folajimi co-founded the Global Centre for Information Technology Empowerment and Education, a platform through which she coordinates the Nigeria Geek Girls Camp, and Nigeria Girls and Women Hackathon for Social Change and Empowerment and Nigeria Whiz-kids Day Out. So far, she has been a source of inspiration to thousands of vulnerable groups, especially youths, girls, women and children annually, |