By Joseph Joy, Onyekachi Agu, Chika Ogechi, Amarachi Daniel and Shedrack Eze

The Department of Computer Engineering set the pace, recently, when they became the first department to organize an International Conference under the new management in the university.

The two-day event which also had alumni homecoming as part of the conference, was held on 26th and 28th June, 2024.

In this exclusive interview with the Head of Computer Department, Dr Harmony Nzeribe, he shared her thoughts with our team of reporters on why the department organized the conference/homecoming which she said was the first of its kind in the history of the department.

Excerpts

Tell us about the conference, ma.

The conference held between 26th and 28th of June, 2024 with the theme “Digital Innovation and Disruptive Technology: Towards Achieving a Digital Nation.” The aim was to make people aware of emerging technologies like the AI, (Artificial Intelligence) cyber security, cryptocurrency, among others. To expose them to all these emerging technologies and try to know how they can explore and use them to ideate and also use them to solve societal and economic problems.

We combined it with alumni homecoming, because since 39 years of existence of this department in 1985, we have not had it.
The conference provided us an opportunity to also bring together these alumni. It’s the first of its kind since this department started and I am happy that the LOC (Local Organising Committee) members packaged the conference very well, it was everywhere. Because of the way we broadcast and announced it, it now became an eye-opener to other department. We set the pace for them. Computer Engineering is the stakeholder when it comes to departmental conference and I give God the glory.

What are the take home?

A lot of take homes because the foundation has been laid concerning the department because we believe that this need to be sustained as technology evolves, it is trending, there maybe other technologies that will emerge, we need to delve into it and also make the public and our students to be aware of it. Conference is all about exchanging ideas and networking with other surroundings.

I believe that conference is a time to learn because there may be things that you may know before now, if you should keep holding onto them without improving on them, you may be obsolete because technology keeps evolving. When you come to conference, new ideas, new technologies are being discussed. From there you begin to upscale those ones that you already know. Learn another one and keep relearning.

Another take home is the alumni get-together, those people that graduated from the department for the past 39 years, coming out to the institution and the younger ones seeing them and now they have that mindset and are relaxed that after graduating from ESUT, they can become somebody, achieve and live their dreams. And come back to the institution, to bring back that which has been impacted in you to come back to give back to Alma mater that trained you.

Alumni Promises

The alumni showed up in numbers, the turnout was huge and we are elated. They made promises, some promised to get laptops for the students, some want to come and see the facilities we have and they will now know what to bring in. There are others who talked about the fact that the department don’t have an active internet network and promised to do something about it. Others said that we should just tell them our needs and they will support.

The fact is that we need alumni support, in most departments and universities, alumni are the strong pillars of support and we are happy we had the homecoming.

The alumni also promised to sustain the meeting which we initiated because as I said earlier, it was their first meeting since graduation. They believe that this conference is like Alumni get-together, a seed that has planted, it has to grow until it becomes a forest which cannot be pull-down.

Another thing the alumni promised is that they say that they don’t just want to do any project, that they want to go and think and come back to do a long lasting project so that anytime it is seen, it will be known that the alumni has come back to give to the department. One of the alumni Engr. Charles Nnaji promised to host a website for the department.

What are the challenges for organizing the conference?

There are a lot of challenges. The economic situation in Nigeria now, the finance was not easy to come by. When a new vision and a new idea comes, trying to get people to agree with you to key into, s also another problem. But when you know the vision which God has given you to rebuild the department, which is getting Computer Engineering moving, you have to remain focused until you get that idea come to pass.

The organization of the conference, was not easy, we had a lot of struggles on the way but why it became a success is because of the fact that it was the first. We worked with one mind. So challenges were there particularly finance but my team worked assiduously and we overcame them.

Everybody, both the members of the committee and staff of the department worked together, we had the same focus, the same mindset to figure the first successful Computer Engineering conference.

Is this conference going to be sustained?

That is why I said that the take home is sustainability, it is going to be an annual event. The foundation has been laid so we believe that as time goes on, like I said, new technology comes, we organize this conference to make people be aware of it. Let the students, the people outside there talk know and talk about it, everybody networking and we collaborate and also learn.