A collaborative approach for local training on contemporary mobile technologies in Eritrea

The unprecedented uptake of mobile services in Africa has had substantial direct and indirect impacts on the local economies. Eritrea is one of the countries in the continent that is relatively late adaptor of mobile broadband technologies. This change in the local mobile landscape is creating an urgent need for enhanced local expertise in mobile technologies. To that end, the local higher education institutions play a key role in the capacity building process. In this article, we describe the experience from a capacity building project with the Eritrean Institute of Technology (EIT) that resulted in the implementation training course on Advanced Wireless Technologies (AWT) at EIT. We demonstrate how the course design was fit with the local context and training needs within the mobile ecosystem. Furthermore, we present the teaching approach and hands-on learning activities that were utilized in the AWT course. Finally, we provide some concluding discussions based on the experiences from venue of the course implementation. The collaborative approaches and experiences shared here provide a useful model for local HEIs in Eritrea (and Africa in general) that are undergoing similar process of adapting advanced mobile technologies.