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Teaching

Teaching Computer Science in Ethiopia

I actually started out looking for a position anywhere in Africa, but it’s hard to even begin a search that broad.  So partly by chance I ended up focusing on Ethiopia.  I’m a computer programmer by trade, not a professor, and I was looking for a school where my experience would really add something.  I mean India has plenty of eager computer science students, but it also has a much larger pool of teachers with the relevant skills.  The last thing I wanted to do was end up taking some local teacher’s job.

Ethiopia has a pretty extreme shortage of computer science teachers relative to local demand.  It’s also a country I knew very little about, so coming from Canada I figured I’d learn something about what life was like for people in a very different place.

 Well, my boss at a previous company was Ethiopian, but I didn’t use that connection as well as I should have.  I started out looking for an NGO that could help set up the trip.  But I didn’t find much.  CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) has a program for young Canadians wanting to work abroad, but it seemed to be aimed more at fresh grads than at more experienced workers like me.  I didn’t find anything like IPP.

Fortunately, this was 2002, not 1992.  I just spent a few weeks searching the Web and sending emails to various random Ethiopian organizations and potential employers.  Most went nowhere, but one guy referred me to an Ethiopian company that ended up hiring me as a software consultant.

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