del Alamo's WebLab expands to African universities

March 28, 2005

Ever since Jesús del Alamo and some of his students created it in 1998, the MIT Microelectronics WebLab has enabled more than 3,000 students from four continents to remotely measure the current-voltage characteristics of microelectronics devices. In the last few years, the iLab Project, as it is now known at MIT, has extended the concept of online laboratories to other engineering disciplines at MIT. Now participants will also include students from three universities in Africa.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York, a foundation aimed at advancing education in developing countries, has recently made US $800,000 in funding available to MIT to allow students at Makerere University (Uganda), University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria) to access MIT's iLabs for projects ranging from a heat exchanger to a shake table for earthquake engineering. Additionally, MIT will support its three African partners to develop their own iLabs. As part of this project, there will be staff and student exchanges.

In Jesús' words, "The program is likely to have multiplicative effects in the form of revamped curricula and the broader use of computers by students and teaching staff in engineering education."

Prof. Jesus del Alamo (photo above) demonstrates the MIT Microelectronics WebLab to students and faculty at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife (Nigeria) in April of 2004.

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