Doctoral & Masters Consortium

About Doctoral & Masters Consortium

The AfriCHI’23 Doctoral and Masters Consortium is an in-person full-day event that will take place during the AfriCHI’23 conference. The primary goal of the DMC is to provide a forum for in-depth research discussions and to build a mentoring and peer network among a small group of participating Masters and Ph.D. students.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE (ICC)
TIME SESSION VENUE SESSION ACTIVITIES
08:00 – 09:00
Welcome Tea/Coffee Registration
ICC Foyer
09:00 – 10:30
Doctoral & Masters Consortium – Student presentations
REGENCY 1
Melissa Densmore, Jacki O’Neill and Nic Bidwell
10:00 – 11:00
Mid-morning Tea/Coffee Break
ICC Foyer
11:00 – 12:30
Doctoral & Masters Consortium – Student presentations
REGENCY 1
Melissa Densmore, Jacki O’Neill and Nic Bidwell
12:30 -13:30
Lunch
ICC Dining Hall
13:30 -15:00
Doctoral & Masters Consortium – Student challenges
REGENCY 1
Melissa Densmore, Jacki O’Neill and Nic Bidwell
15:00 -15:30
Afternoon Tea/Coffee
ICC Foyer
15:30 – 17:00
Doctoral & Masters Consortium – Student challenges
REGENCY 1
Melissa Densmore, Jacki O’Neill and Nic Bidwell
  • Dr Jacki O’Neill is founding Director of Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI). She is passionate about designing technologies which enhance, rather
    than remove, agency and create sustainable futures. She brings this passion to the MARI where she is building a multi-disciplinary team, combining
    research, engineering, and design to solve local problems globally. An ethnographer by trade, specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) her
    research aims to drive innovation to make the best possible technologies for work, health, and society. She has led major research projects in the future
    of work, financial inclusion, and global healthcare. She has >50 peer-reviewed articles, two innovation awards and 16 patents.
  • Associate Professor Melissa Densmore is Director of the HCI Lab at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Coordinator of Hasso Plattner Institute
    Research School at UCT. Her research has a specific focus on co-design of local content and services for communities, particularly around digital maternal
    and child health, as well as contributing to the development of iNethi, a software platform designed to support community wireless networks. Melissa
    gained her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Information and completed her postdoc with the Technology for Emerging Markets
    group at Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India.
  • Dr Nic (Nicola) Bidwell has held academic positions in Australia, Denmark, Namibia, and South Africa. Her research, at the intersection of HCI and social
    informatics, focuses on rural settings and the Global Souths. Her recent studies include Community Networks and community radio and exploring
    predictive logics with Indigenous groups to produce more epistemically accountable AI. Nic has >120 peer-reviewed articles and an award for
    contributions to social and economic development and her work has influenced policy discussion. Nic co-founded AfriCHI and is chair for Sustainability
    on SIGCHI’s Executive Committee. She currently has a role in Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne, while maintaining her home in rural Namibia.