West, Central African Research Network to Hold confab in NOUN, as VC, ACETEL Assure Support

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN), Dr. Boubakar Barry, has solicited the support of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and the Africa Centre of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning (ACETEL), to host the upcoming WACREN 2024 Conference at the university headquarters, in Abuja.

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Barry was led by the ACETEL team to a courtesy call on the NOUN Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Olufemi Peters as part of preparation for the conference.

The VC gave his approval for the hosting of the conference in NOUN at the new Multimedia Facility, the Main Conference Hall as well as the Side Meeting Rooms.

Peters affirmed the university’s readiness to support the conference to ensure its success.

WACREN is also working closely with ACETEL to have a 1-day interactive session on Digital Education during the conference.

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The network’s mission was to build and operate a world-class network infrastructure, develop state-of-the-art services, promote collaboration among national, regional, international research and education communities and build the capacity of the Research Education Network (REN) community.

On its part, ACETEL, under the leadership of the director, Prof. Grace Jokthan, is driving the initiative of putting up the interactive session on Digital Education for the conference and to discuss the infrastructure and competencies that are required to ensure digital education is conducted in high standards.

Speaking during an interview, Jokthan said “that is also part of the visit, to be sure that we are working together to have a 1-day programme that has to do with digital education as part of the WACREN conference. ACETEL is driving that agenda on behalf of the university. We have put up together a programme that we believe will be interactive, that will throw more light on the need for digital education. This is the essense of the CEO’s visit.”

Earlier, Mr. Barry, along with the National Universities Commission (NUC) representative, Mr. Adeoye, met with the ACETEL team at the centre to talk about ACETEL’s preparations for the upcoming conference.

This latest visit was one of WACREN’s several visits to ACETEL as its officials had previously, at different times, paid courtesy calls on the centre to discuss the side-line interactive activity and to seek ACETEL’s readiness to support the conference.

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Members of the team present at the meeting were the ACETEL Deputy Director, Dr. Johnson Opateye, Padagogical Expert in the team, Prof. Juliet Inegbedion, and Secretary to the WACREN Conference Committee, NOUN, Mr. Udochukwu Nwankwo.