After a number of years of volunteering for IEEE humanitarian know-how tasks, Samantha Mugeni Niyoyita determined she wanted extra than simply technical expertise to assist underserved communities grow to be extra self-sufficient. The IEEE member from Kigali, Rwanda, participated in putting in moveable sinks in close by rural markets to curb the unfold of COVID-19 and offered clear water and sanitation companies to folks displaced by the Mount Nyiragongo volcano eruption in 2021.
Niyoyita wished to discover ways to sort out different points corresponding to entry to high quality well being care, understanding completely different cultures, and changing into conversant in native insurance policies. And she or he felt she wanted to boost her management and communications expertise and discover ways to handle tasks.
Because of a scholarship from IEEE Sensible Village, she is now getting that schooling by the grasp’s diploma program in improvement follow from Regis College, in Denver. This system, supplied just about and in particular person, combines concept and hands-on coaching on matters corresponding to neighborhood outreach and engagement, well being care, the setting, and sustainability. It teaches management and different tender expertise.
Along with bringing electrical energy to distant communities, IEEE Sensible Village provides instructional and employment alternatives. To be eligible for its scholarship, the scholar’s thesis challenge should assist this system’s mission.
Niyoyita, who attends lessons remotely, is a course of engineer at Africa Improved Meals, additionally in Kigali. AIF manufactures porridge from maize and different cereals and fortifies it with nutritional vitamins and minerals. She has labored there for greater than 4 years.
“Sensible Village needs to empower its members in order that we will implement tasks in our local people understanding what the most effective practices are,” she says.
She acknowledges she wouldn’t have been capable of afford to attend Regis with out assist from IEEE.
Digital medical information to enhance care
Niyoyita is now within the second 12 months of the diploma program. Her analysis challenge is to evaluate the influence of digitizing the medical information of major care clinics, often called well being posts, in rural Rwanda.
“The well being put up information are principally paper-based, and transitioning to digital information would enhance affected person outcomes,” Niyoyita says. “This supplies quick access to information and improves coordination of care.”
She plans to judge simply how entry to digital information by well being care professionals can enhance affected person care.
Her scholarship of US $5,045 was funded by donations to IEEE Sensible Village. For the reason that instructional program was launched in 2015, greater than 30 people from 16 nations have participated.
“I used to be lucky to obtain this scholarship,” she says. “It has helped me rather a lot in terms of tender expertise. As an engineer, usually we are typically very technical. Expressing ourselves and sharing our expertise and experience are the sorts of issues you may solely be taught by a social science grasp’s diploma.”
Many alternatives as an industrial engineer
As a teen, Niyoyita was extra curious about topics that required her to purpose and assume creatively as an alternative of memorizing info. She excelled at arithmetic and physics.
“That was how I received into engineering,” she says, including that she additionally was impressed by her brother, an engineer.
The diploma from Regis is along with these Niyoyita already holds from the College of Utilized Sciences and Arts, often called HES-SO Valais-Wallis, in Sion, Switzerland. She earned a bachelor’s diploma in industrial techniques engineering in 2015 and a grasp’s in engineering with a focus in mechatronics in 2017.
She selected to review industrial engineering, she says, as a result of she finds it to be a “self-discipline that provides quite a few pathways to numerous fields and profession alternatives. I’m capable of perceive idea designs—which incorporates mechanical and electrical—programming, and automation. You’ve got a wealth of profession alternatives and an opportunity to make an influence.”
“IEEE Sensible Village needs to empower its members in order that we will implement tasks in our local people understanding what the most effective practices are.”
At AIF, she analyzes the corporate’s processes to establish bottlenecks within the manufacturing line, and he or she proposes methods to repair them.
“We obtain these cereals and clear and grind them,” she says. “We’ve a cooking part and fortify the cereals by mixing. Then we package deal and promote them.”
She evaluates the manufacturing stream and checks on the efficiency of the tools. As well as, she supplies technological assist when new merchandise are being developed.
AIF is benefiting from the coaching she’s receiving from the grasp’s diploma program, she says, as she is studying to guide groups, present modern options, and collaborate with others.
A profitable IEEE energy convention to Rwanda
Niyoyita joined IEEE whereas a scholar at HES-SO Valais-Wallis as a result of she wanted entry to its journals for her analysis papers. After she graduated, she continued her membership and began volunteering for IEEE Sensible Village in 2019. She served as a secretary for its Africa Working Group group, which labored on humanitarian tasks.
She additionally received concerned in organizing conferences in Africa. Her first occasion was the 2019 PowerAfrica Convention, held in Abuja, Nigeria. It coated rising energy system applied sciences, purposes, authorities insurance policies, and regulatory frameworks. As a member of the convention’s technical program committee, she helped develop this system and reviewed article submissions. She additionally was a speaker on the IEEE Ladies in Engineering panel.
Based mostly on that optimistic expertise, she says, she vowed to deliver the convention to Rwanda—which she did final 12 months. As cochair, she oversaw the price range, convention logistics, and different preparations to “make sure that native and overseas attendees had a wonderful expertise,” she says. Greater than 300 folks from 43 nations attended.
Offering entrepreneurs with expertise to succeed
One challenge that Niyoyita has placed on the again burner due to her work and college commitments is offering her nation’s technicians with the talents they should grow to be entrepreneurs.
Many latest graduates of vocational technical colleges in rural Rwanda have advised her they need to begin their very own firm, she says, however she has seen they lack the talents to take action.
“Despite the fact that they supply problem-solving merchandise or concepts, they typically lack the advertising and marketing expertise and monetary literacy to have the ability to maintain their challenge,” she says. “Additionally they must know easy methods to pitch an thought and make a proposal to allow them to get funding.”
She want to create an after-school incubation hub to supply the technicians with coaching, entry to the Web to allow them to flesh out their concepts, mentorship alternatives, and advisors who can inform them the place to search out financing.
“I used to be capable of get a number of the expertise from the grasp’s diploma program,” she says, “however most of them I received from my work and likewise from my involvement in IEEE.”
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