Browsing by Author "Gabriel, Maria"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open source cellular technologies for cost effective cellular connectivity in rural areas
    (Foundation of Computer Science, 2016) Anthony, Faustine; Gabriel, Maria; Shao, Bertha
    Cellular coverage is often a challenge in low population density and low income rural areas of the developing world like Tanzania. This is because big Telecom companies defer from deploying their expensive infrastructure in these areas fearing operations cost. It is proposed that the use of cellular open source technology as the basis for a new rural cellular network can go a long way in meeting this challenge by providing coverage in rural areas whilst simultaneously bringing down the cost of communication. This paper provides survey of recent open source cellular technologies. It further presents a prototype based on Open BTS for cellular connectivity in developing countries. In lab performance test for the proposed pro-to type confirm the feasibility of deploying cellular network based on open source technologies as an alternative to conventional mobile operator networks in a bid to solve the challenge.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Women engagement in ICT professions in Tanzania: exploring challenges and opportunities
    (Serials Publications, 2016) Muro, Christina; Gabriel, Maria
    While the government of Tanzania tries to increase number of women representation in all sectors, there are still fewer women in ICT sector. ICT has a great potential in reduce gender gap as it overcome geographical barrier and provide information and knowledge with easy and low access cost. Scholars from different countries have conducted research on the reasons of lesser number of women in ICT profession; however there are insufficient studies in Tanzania which systematically show the reasons of why women are underrepresented in various arenas of ICT professions. Therefore this study aims at identifying barriers that hinder women to engage in ICT professions in Tanzania and thereby exploring opportunities that could be adopted to overcome gender inequality in ICT professions. The study employed literature review and survey methods to achieve the objectives. Through Literature review and survey this paper has found that lack of awareness on the importance of ICT (76.2%) and lack of moral and financial support (65.6%) were the most dominant factors hindering women to pursue ICT professions. Additionally it was also found that having good background on science subject (86.4%), being confidence and focused on a certain career path (84.2%), and encouragements from role models (72.9%) were the most important factors which would provide women with opportunities to engage in ICT professions. We concluded that there is a need of formulating polices in higher institutions which are gender sensitive in order to engage women in ICT related professions.