Dorothy Okello is a Ugandan electrical engineer, and professor known for founding the Women of Uganda Network or WOUGNET.[1][2] In 2016, she became the first female president of the Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers[3]

Eng. Dr.
Dorothy Kabagaju Okello
NationalityUgandan
EducationMakerere University
(B.S. in Electrical Engineering, 1992)
University of Kansas
(M.S. in Electrical Engineering, 1999)
McGill University
(Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, 2004)
Engineering career
DisciplineProfessor, engineer
InstitutionsBoard Chair Uganda Communications Commission
Former President, Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers
Employer(s)Makerere University
ProjectsWomen of Uganda Network WOUGNET
Eastern Africa Resilience Innovations Lab (EA RILab)

Education

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She has a BSc in electrical engineering from Makerere University, Uganda, obtained in 1992, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering (1999) from the University of Kansas where she was a Fulbright Scholar,[4] and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2004) from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (where she received a Commonwealth Scholarship).[5] She has worked to get more women and rural communities engaged in the information society.[6]

Career

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She is currently the Dean School of Engineering at Makerere University.[7] She is Africa's first-ever Digital Woman of the Year, an honour bestowed upon her at an Africa ICT Days gala ceremony for the Digital Woman Award finalists that took place on 16 November in Yaoundé, Cameroon.[8]

In October 2012, Okello was awarded the Women Achievers Award for her service in empowering women and girls through Science and Technology.[9]

Okello was elected as the first female president of the Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers at the institution AGM on 29 April 2016.[10] On 2 June 2016 a congratulatory letter from the Irish President Michael D. Higgins was presented to her by the Irish Ambassador to Uganda Dónal Cronin on becoming the first female president of the institution.[11]

Academic authorship

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She is highly respected researcher and has carried out most of her work with netLabs!UG, a research centre within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the university.[12] Her work has been published in reputable journals and some of it includes (1) Coverage and rate of low density ABS assisted vertical heterogeneous network which was published in the 2022 IEEE 33rd Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)[13] (2) Unmanned aerial vehicles: opportunities for developing countries and challenges which was published in the 2020 IST-Africa Conference (IST-Africa)[14] (3) A deep reinforcement learning-based algorithm for reliability-aware multi-domain service deployment in smart ecosystems.[15] (4) Effect of different organic substrates on reproductive biology, growth rate and offtake of the African night crawler earthworm (Eudrilus eugeniae).[16] (5) Resource-aware workload orchestration for edge computing published in 2020 28th Telecommunications Forum (TELFOR).[17] (6) Leveraging the technology of unmanned aerial vehicles for developing countries published in SAIEE Africa Research Journal.[18] (7) Rebuilding the internet exchange point in Uganda published by the 2017 28th Irish Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC).[19] (8) Regulatory and broadband industry responses to COVID-19: cases of Uganda, Peru, and the Caribbean.[20] (9) Enabling models of Internet eXchange Points for developing contexts.[21] (10) Co-designing with engineers for community engagement in rural Uganda published by Oxford University Press.[22]

Family

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Okello is married with three children.[3]

References

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  1. ^ Ted Hart; et al. (2010). Internet management for nonprofits : strategies, tools & trade secrets. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. p. 376. ISBN 978-0-470-53956-9. Retrieved 31 January 2011. Mobile phones are affordable to many people even in rural areas," explains Wougnet's executive director, Dorothy Okello.
  2. ^ Abdelnasser, Abdelaal (28 February 2013). Social and Economic Effects of Community Wireless Networks and Infrastructures. IGI Global. ISBN 978-1-4666-2998-1.
  3. ^ a b NANTABA, AGNES (21 November 2016). "Engineer Dr. Dorothy Okello sparkles in male-dominated profession". independent.co.ug. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  4. ^ "Eng. Dr. Dorothy Okello – UCC: Uganda Communications Commission". Archived from the original on 16 March 2022. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  5. ^ "Dr. Dorothy Okello – Short Profile" (PDF). n.d. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  6. ^ Buskens, Doctor Ineke; Webb, Doctor Anne (4 July 2013). African Women and ICTs: Investigating Technology, Gender and Empowerment. Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84813-606-9.
  7. ^ "Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Makerere University". 12 July 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  8. ^ "African Digital Woman Announced". n.d. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  9. ^ "Dr Dorothy Okello wins Women Achievers Award". College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology. 16 January 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  10. ^ Kawalya, Shawn Davis (2 May 2016). "Meet Okello Kabagajju the new Engineers' boss". Eagle Online. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
  11. ^ Kamoga, Jonathan (6 June 2016). "Engineer's president to push for more science students". the Observer (Uganda).
  12. ^ "Eng. Dr. Dorothy Okello – UCC: Uganda Communications Commission". Archived from the original on 16 March 2022. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  13. ^ Mugala, Sheila; Serugunda, Jonathan; Zhang, Li; Okello, Dorothy; Zhong, Jihai (12 September 2022). "Coverage and Rate of Low Density ABS Assisted Vertical Heterogeneous Network" (PDF). 2022 IEEE 33rd Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC). IEEE. pp. 945–950. doi:10.1109/PIMRC54779.2022.9977479. ISBN 978-1-6654-8053-6. S2CID 254930405.
  14. ^ MUGALA, Sheila; OKELLO, Dorothy; SERUGUNDA, Jonathan (2020). "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Opportunities for Developing Countries and Challenges". 2020 IST-Africa Conference (IST-Africa): 1–10.
  15. ^ Kibalya, Godfrey; Serrat, Joan; Gorricho, Juan-Luis; Okello, Dorothy; Zhang, Peiying (5 October 2020). "A deep reinforcement learning-based algorithm for reliability-aware multi-domain service deployment in smart ecosystems". Neural Computing and Applications. 35 (33): 23795–23817. doi:10.1007/s00521-020-05372-x. hdl:2117/330941. ISSN 1433-3058. S2CID 224870360.
  16. ^ Kabi, Fred; Kayima, Denis; Kigozi, Abasi; Mpingirika, Eric Zadok; Kayiwa, Ronald; Okello, Dorothy (1 September 2020). "Effect of different organic substrates on reproductive biology, growth rate and offtake of the African night crawler earthworm (Eudrilus eugeniae)". Organic Agriculture. 10 (3): 395–407. doi:10.1007/s13165-020-00284-5. ISSN 1879-4246. S2CID 256063671.
  17. ^ Babirye, Susan; Serugunda, Jonathan; Okello, Dorothy; Mwanje, Stephen (24 November 2020). "Resource-Aware Workload Orchestration for Edge Computing". 2020 28th Telecommunications Forum (TELFOR). pp. 1–4. doi:10.1109/TELFOR51502.2020.9306551. ISBN 978-1-6654-0499-0. S2CID 231617676. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  18. ^ Mugala, Sheila N.; Okello, Dorothy K.; Serugunda, Jonathan (2020). "Leveraging the Technology of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Developing Countries". SAIEE Africa Research Journal. 111 (4): 139–148. doi:10.23919/SAIEE.2020.9194383. ISSN 1991-1696. S2CID 225022391.
  19. ^ Ó Briain, Diarmuid; Denieffe, David; Kavanagh, Yvonne; Okello, Dorothy (2017). "Rebuilding the Internet Exchange Point in Uganda". 2017 28th Irish Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC). IEEE. pp. 1–6. doi:10.1109/ISSC.2017.7983601. ISBN 978-1-5386-1046-6. S2CID 19081488.
  20. ^ Jamison, Mark A.; Okello, Dorothy; Barrantes, Roxana; Cox, David (9 May 2023), Whalley, Jason; Stocker, Volker; Lehr, William (eds.), "Regulatory and Broadband Industry Responses to COVID-19: Cases of Uganda, Peru, and the Caribbean", Beyond the Pandemic? Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Telecommunications and the Internet, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 153–167, doi:10.1108/978-1-80262-049-820231007, ISBN 978-1-80262-050-4, retrieved 19 May 2023
  21. ^ Ó Briain, Diarmuid; Denieffe, David; Okello, Dorothy; Kavanagh, Yvonne (2020). "Enabling models of Internet eXchange Points for developing contexts". Development Engineering. 5: 100057. doi:10.1016/j.deveng.2020.100057. S2CID 226371257.
  22. ^ White, P. J.; Okello, Dorothy; Casey, Brian P.; Najjuuko, Claire; Lukanga, Ronald (2023). "Co-designing with engineers for community engagement in rural Uganda". Design Science. 9. doi:10.1017/dsj.2023.10. ISSN 2053-4701. S2CID 258464023.