The Chartered Institute for IT, has conferred Fellowship status on Professor Francisca Onaolapo Oladipo, in a way recognizing her landmark achievements and exceptional contributions to the computing profession and digital innovation across Africa.
Professor Oladipo, currently serving as Vice-Chancellor of Thomas Adewumi University in Nigeria, was conferred with the honour for her pioneering work in implementing FAIR data systems across multiple African countries and her leadership in addressing global challenges through technology.
“The BCS Fellowship recognizes individuals who have demonstrated an exceptional contribution to the advancement of computing,” said a BCS spokesperson. “Professor Oladipo’s work exemplifies how technology can address critical challenges in resource-constrained environments while ensuring digital sovereignty.”
Oladipo’s academic journey reflects her commitment to excellence in computing research. Following her PhD in Computer Science from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, she completed a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2014. Her expertise was further enhanced through specialized training at the Machine Learning Summer School in Madrid, the Institute of Analytics and Data Science at the University of Essex for Big Data Analytics, and the University of Oxford’s Continuing Education program in Data Science.
In 2016, she was selected as a United States Department of State TechWomen Emerging Leader, completing a fellowship at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. Her technical expertise and innovative approaches to computing challenges have attracted significant research funding, including multiple Google grants totalling over $300,000 USD, spanning ExploreCSR Research Grants, TensorFlow research funding, and the Google Award for Inclusion Research.
Her most notable achievement, leading the Virus Outbreak Data Africa Network (VODAN-Africa), created the first successful implementation of machine-actionable FAIR Data Points for COVID-19 across eight African countries. This initiative, recognized in the 2021 UNESCO Engineering report, established a framework for health data sharing those respects both global standards and local sovereignty.
“This recognition from the BCS validates the importance of ensuring African perspectives are represented in global technology governance,” Professor Oladipo said. “Computing solutions must be culturally appropriate while meeting international standards.”
As an academic leader, Oladipo has transformed Thomas Adewumi University, establishing numerous research centres and skills-building academies in partnership with global technology leaders including MIT, Oracle, and Huawei. Under her leadership, the university has risen from 252nd to 41st in Nigeria’s university rankings and now stands as the top-ranked institution among all universities licensed in 2021 in Nigeria—a remarkable achievement for such a young institution.
The BCS Fellowship adds to Professor Oladipo’s growing list of recognitions, which includes fellowships from the Nigeria Computer Society, African Scientists Institute, and Pan-Africa Scientific Research Council. She is also a three-time recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery’s fellowship for Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in AI.
Her Fellowship recognizes not only technical excellence but also her commitment to building computing capacity across Africa, having mentored over 500 students and established data stewardship competency centres in Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Ethiopia.
Professor Oladipo joins an elite group of IT professionals recognized for their significant contributions to the advancement of computing, information technology, and practice.
