Mrs. Fatimata Seye Sylla, Engineer
Specialist in ICT in education, teacher training, and education policy development
Experience in project management, social mobilization, public private partnerships, and gender
Madam Fatimata Seye Sylla holds a Master of Science from the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Technology University degree (DUT) in Computer Science from the Technology University Institute (IUT) of Havre in France, a Certificate of Business Administration (CGE) from CESAG, an Africa regional postgraduate management school in Dakar.
Since October 2014, Fatimata Seye Sylla has served as the Regional Educational Representative for FHI360 / West and Central Africa. In this role she functions as the technical lead in business development activities for the sub-region as well as provides technical assistance and oversight to education projects and the FHI360 legacy organization (the Senegalese Private Sector Foundation for Education) within her portfolio (primary schools, middle schools, accelerated learning centres and koranic schools).
From October 2008 to September 2013, she served as the National ICT Coordinator to connect to the internet hundreds of middle schools in Senegal as part of the USAID-EDB (basic education) project for better quality education. She promoted “ICT in education” teacher training programs and local digital content development in 300 schools by teachers and students and provided assistance to raise funds from private sector companies to support the project ICT in Education initiative. She also led the development of a contribution document to the policy of ICT in Education for Senegal.
For 2 years, Fatimata was the acting DCOP for the USAID/EDB project, providing oversight to the other 4 technical program components (Curriculum and Teaching, Vulnerable Children, Good Governance and Public Private Partnership), the Grants management unit, the M&E unit and the Finance and Administration unit.
For 6 years Fatimata worked as the Team Leader of the Informatics and Education research laboratory of the “Ecole Normale Superieure” of Dakar”, a teacher training school of Cheikh Anta Diop University. During this time, she initiated the LOGO project, a computer-based initiative focused on training teachers and children ages 6-12 to develop French literacy skills (both reading and writing) as well as to learn mathematical and scientific concepts using computers.
From 2003 to 2006, she was selected as COP to run the USAID “Digital Freedom Initiative” (DFI) program, a US Presidential initiative to bridge the digital divide in Senegal by strengthening over 100 Small and Medium Enterprises from different sectors including health and education in the use of ICT for economic development.
She has also served as a director of private companies in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and worked as an expert consultant for several foreign and international organizations such as MIT, UNESCO / BREDA, UN / ECA, ITU, IDRC, UNDP, AAWORD, Francophonie, UN/DAW, ENDA, USAID, etc.
Ms. Seye Sylla is author of several publications and studies in the fields of ICT, education, gender and development, ICT and democracy, Internet governance and mobile banking.
As an active member of the African civil society community for the promotion of ICT for development in Africa, Fatimata invested a lot of resources and time to support her community mostly focusing on women and youth. She is a founding member of many ICT-related associations and NGOs (ISOC, OSIRIS, FOSSFA, ACSIS, Régentic, Bokk Jang). She was nominated member of the At Large Advisory Committee of Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN / ALAC, www.icann.org) from November 2007 to November 2009 and Chair of ALAC / AFRALO from 2009 to 2013.
Fatimata was nominated by ALAC to join the ICANN nominating committee for 2 one-year mandates in a row (2014 and 2015). She recently served as a member of the ICANN Board Candidate Evaluation Committee (BCEC) 2016 representing AFRALO to select the At-Large Board member in 2017.
In March 2017, Fatimata is nominated and selected by AfChix[1] as one of the ten (10) African Women in Technology Role Models whose stories are video record and shared, to inspire hundreds of young girls and women into Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Fatimata is reelected as ICANN/AFRALO Vice-Chair in 2018.
In October 2013, Fatimata is reelected President of the Bokk Jang NGO in Senegal (www.bokk.org). She led the training of 46 female engineers in Android applications development and is still providing support to them for their professional projects.