Speakers and panellists

Mary Goretti is Executive Director of Uwezo Uganda. She is a board member and secretary of the Regional Education Learning Initiative Africa (RELI Africa) and co-principal investigator of its programme on Assessment & Action for Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE). She is on the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR) Advisory Board. Research interests include: assessment for learning, education and international development, teacher education, and curriculum development. 

Mohammed Mahmud is a software engineer with a career spanning over 25 years. His expertise encompasses the orchestration of IT policy strategies for governmental and private entities. He has held the role of systems administrator at the Petroleum Trust Fund.  He served as the technical advisor to the Minister of Education. Mahmud served on the boards of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Computer Registration Council of Nigeria.

Mwajuma Siama Vuzo is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She has a PhD in Education and Masters of Philosophy in International and Comparative Education both from the University of Oslo, Norway. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Dar es Salaam. She has interest in the transformation of African education and contributing to sustainable education in language education.

Kedir is an ICT Specialist at the Ministry of Education, working under the ICT and Digital Education Office. He has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Haramaya University and a master's degree from Ambo University. Mr Urji has recently completed a master class certificate on Foundations for Excellence in Teaching Online from Arizona State University. 

Julian Parry is the British Council’s Director English and School Education Sub-Saharan Africa, based in the UK. Julian has been working in English language education since 1994, including as a teacher, teacher trainer, ICT trainer, academic manager, teaching centre manager, country lead, project manager, and country director. He has worked in Kenya, Turkey, Poland, Egypt, South Korea, India, Morocco, and Rwanda.

Abdelmajid Bouziane is an Emeritus Professor of education at Hassan II University of Casablanca.  He specialises in research on learning and teaching (foreign) languages. He has published on EFL in journals and books in Morocco and elsewhere. He is interested in EFL, ICT in education, teachers’ associations, research methods, and quality in (higher) education. He served as the ELTeCS (English Language Teaching Contacts Scheme) editor for Africa and the Middle East from 2003 to 2019. 

Dr Lina is Professor, Department of Training and Development, School of English Language Education at The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. She researches in multilingual education, second language acquisition, language assessment and teaching young language learners. At present, she is working on multiple projects in collaboration with the University of Cambridge on multilingual education, teacher training, and multilingual assessment in India.