- I was one of the participants in the “Global Engineering Education Leader Conference (GEELeC) 2016″ that was held in Shenzhen China, December 5-7 2016. Click here for more information.
- I have been chosen as the winner of the “2016 GEDC Airbus Diversity Award.” The award was held in Seoul South Korea, November 6-10 2016. I have been awarded USD $10,000 and the two others short-listed candidates received USD $1,500 each. This award is intended to both recognize our work in the field to date, and support our continuing initiatives.
- Here is an interview related to my award for a Science Program on the German Radio Station. It is only 10 minutes long, but it is in my native “Amharic” language. Click here to listen to the interview.
- I was invited as one of the “Keynote Speakers” for the “6TH African Engineering Education Association International Conference (AEEA 2016),” which was held in Bloemfontein, South Africa , in September 20-23 2016. My talk was entitled, “Pan-African Research Collaboration: A Vision for the Future of Engineering Education in Africa.”
- Served as the Co-Chair for the GEDC-AEDC Summit that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 17-18 2015. The summit was jointly organized by the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) in collaboration with the African Engineering Deans Council (AEDC) and hosted by the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT). The summit brought together more than 100 Engineering Deans from around the world for a very engaging and informative two day meeting. Select this link to read more about the two day summit.
- This link has a short 10 min video that presents an overview of the summit. It was done by a TV station called EBS TV. Sorry, but all the content is in Amharic.
- We also plan to expand the adoption and use of the new Experimental-Centric approach to ECE education that focuses on hands-on applications using state of the art inexpensive and portable laboratory technology and innovative pedagogy from 5 universities to 10 universities in Ethiopia. Select this link to read more about the new approach.
- The success of our “Foundations of Mathematics (FOM)” Online Math Summer Enrichment program is featured in a recent article published by “Diverse: Issues in Higher Education (September 2015 .” I started the FOM program in the summer of 2000 to help incoming freshman engineering students prepare for the math placement exams. Select this link to read the article.
- I successfully completed my two year term as the Chair of the University Council. The UC is a body that represents about 500 faculty members and 1000 staff members. We held an election during our last UC meeting that was held on May 7th 2015. Accomplishments as the Chair of the University Council
- With President Wilson at the UC meeting on May 7th 2015
Accepting my Certificate of Appreciation from the Executive Committee members of the UC
- We successfully completed a two day workshop that was organized by my colleague Dr. Zelalem Temesgen (M.D.) from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota USA, in collaboration with the Medical School of Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia in April 29-30, 2015. The theme of the workshop was: “Service Science Innovation in Medical Education” We explored different ways of using service science as an enabler to tackle one of the Grand Challenge problems in eHealth. Select this link to read more about the agenda of the workshops.
- I served as a panelist in the session entitled “MOOCs in Engineering Education,” at the “2014 World Engineering Education Forum” that was held in Dubai, UAE December 3-6 2014.
- I was invited as one of only three “Keynote Speakers” for the “IMCL2014 – 2014 International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning,” which was held in Thessalonski, Greece in 13-14 November 2014.
- I had a great time during the Home-Coming game on the campus of Morgan State University on October 18, 2014. Morgan Won the game by one point in the last 45 seconds ==> GO BEARS !!!! I took a couple of pictures with Morgan Alumnus 4 Star General Skip William E. “Kip” Ward, and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings.
With General Skip Ward - MSU Homecoming Oct 18 2014
With Mayor Stephanie Rawlings - MSU Homecoming Oct 18 2014
- I attended the U.S.-Africa Energy Ministerial (AEM) that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 3-4, 2014. Here are some pictures from the conference.
- I was invited as one of the “Keynote Speakers” for the 5th National Research Symposium, at the Debre Berhan University, in Ethiopia May 6-8 2014. I presented a paper entitled: “Learning Without Limits- Low Cost Instrumentation to Improve Engineering Education in Ethiopia and Africa.” See the attached report..
- I was a member of the panel discussion in the the 2014 ECE Department Heads (ECEDHA) Annual conference that was held in Napa, California in March 21-25 2014. The title of the panel was : “NSF Workshop – Role of MOOCs in Engineering Education.”
- The link below shows the workshop I conducted entitled, “Ubiquitous Hands on Learning Using Mobile Laboratory Instrumentation” at the 2014 International Conference on “Transformations in Engineering Education” (ICTIEE) that was held in Hubli, India January 15-18, 2014.
- Follow this link to an excellent TED talk by Prof. Sugata Mitra entitled: “The Child Driven Education.”
- The links below show an interview I conducted on the show called “Helen” that airs on EBS TV station . Note that the complete interview is done in the Amharic language.
- Here is an interesting article that shows how Electrical Engineering (EE) departments are using a “Lab in Box” approach to teach hands-on engineering concepts to their students. The work discussed in the article is similar to what we have been doing in the EE department of Morgan State University for the past 4 years using the device called the “Mobile Studio Board”. For more information see: http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/lab-box-gives-students-hands-experience
- We successfully completed the 5th Regional Conference on Engineering Education (ARCEE 2013) that was organized by the African Engineering Education Association (AEEA) in Lagos, Nigeria, September 10-13 2013.
– For more information see: http://dryacobastatke.com/improving-engineering-education-in-ethiopia-and-africa –
– For more information see: http://www.aeeaonline.org/conference.html
- I participated as a panelist at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Panel Presentation on “Broadening Access and Participation in STEM Education Through Technology: Promises and Challenges,” in Washington,D.C. August 21 2013. My session was on “Portable Technologies and Mobile Computing” and it starts around 2 hours and 50 min of the webcast. For those who’d like to view the recordings or where unable to come the link to the full webcast is here: http://new.livestream.
com/AAASFellowships/events/ 2328711
- I will be conducting a workshop on “Using Portable Laboratory Instruments to improve Engineering Education” at the upcoming 2013 Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI) Conference in Cancun,Mexico August 14-16, 2013. For more information see: http://www.laccei.org/index.php/news
- The Obama Administration’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) is a signature effort to invest in the next generation of African leaders. Nearly one in three Africans are between the ages of 10 and 24, and approximately 60 percent of Africa’s total population is below the age of 35. President Obama launched YALI in 2010 to support young African leaders as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.
The Washington Fellowship is the new flagship program of the President’s YALI. This program will bring over 500 young leaders to the United States each year, beginning in 2014, for leadership training and mentoring, and will create unique opportunities in Africa to put those new skills to practical use in propelling economic growth and prosperity, and strengthening democratic institutions. Please share this link with anyone who is interested in applying for the award.
- I attended and presented two papers and conducted two workshops at the 2013 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, June 23-26, 2013. For more information see: http://www.asee.org/conferences-and-events/conferences/annual-conference/2013
- Here is an article from the website of Morgan State University entitled:
“Yacob Astatke Makes History as National Outstanding Engineering Educator” (follow this link for more info).
- Commencement remarks of U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at Morgan State University—Baltimore, Maryland. He mentioned my name as the winner of the 2013 ASEE Outstanding Teaching Award (follow this link for more info).
- I attended and presented one paper entitled: “Using Online Video Lectures to enhance ECE courses,” the ASEE Mid-Atlantic Spring 2013 Conference in Brooklyn, NY in April 26-27, 2013.
- I successfully organized an Engineering Ambassadors (EAs) workshop in the school of engineering of MSU in April 19-21, 2012. The workshops were conducted by a training staff that came from Penn State University (follow this link for more info). We trained around 15 EAs from MSU that were selected from the four engineering departments and the School of Architecture. Follow this link for more information about the national EA network.
- I attended the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) Annual Conference, that was held in Buena Vista, Florida on March 22-26, 2013. Our department has been chosen as the winner and first recipient of the “2013 EDECHA Diversity Award” by the ECEDHA. It should be noted that our department has been chosen to receive this award out of 580 similar EE/ECE programs in the country. The ECEDHA conference website is shown here.
- I attended, served as a Session Chair, and presented one paper at the 2012 International Telemetering Conference (ITC 2012), San Diego, CA October 25-28 , 2012.
- I attended and presented two papers at the 2012 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, San Antonio, Texas, June 10-13, 2012.
- I coordinated the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) conference that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 24-25, 2012. The conference was organized in collaboration with the 19th Africa Achievement Awards and Economic Forum sponsored by the African Times Newspaper. I was also able to deliver FREE of Charge: 15 laptop computers, 40 Mobile Studio BoardsTM, and other various accessories that were donated by Analog Devices Inc (ADI),and Innovative STEM Solutions (iSTEMS). For more information click on this link to view the summary report of the conference.
- I attended and presented two papers at the 2012 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Spring Mid-Atlantic Region Conference, Newark, Delaware, April 20-21, 2012.
- I attended, served as a Session Chair, and presented one paper at the 2011 International Telemetering Conference (ITC 2011), Las Vegas, NV, October 24-27 , 2011.
- I attended and presented two papers at the 2011 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June 26-29, 2011.
- I attended and presented one paper at the IEEE Globecom 2010 Workshop on Heterogeneous, Multi-hop Wireless and Mobile Networks (HeterWMN 2010), Miami, FL, December 6-10 , 2010.