Public examination of a Doctoral Dissertation in the field of Computer Science
Doctoral candidate Master of Public Administration in Human Resource
Management Alsen Florian Kapinga
Date and venue: 16.4.2020 at 12 noon, online, link to Zoom connection will be published before the dissertation in the address https://www.uef.fi/en/web/edtech/live
Language of the dissertation and the public examination: English
Mobile device ownership has grown exponentially, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where mobile phone is a tool now used almost ubiquitously in everyday life. Within this background, mobile technology use can play a significant role in facilitating the empowerment of women entrepreneurs in such developing economies.
Master of Public Administration in Human Resource Management Alsen Florian Kapinga’s dissertation in the field of computer science research started with exploring the challenges that women entrepreneurs in Iringa, Tanzania, face while carrying out their business and strategies they use to tackle such challenges. The main hurdle identified was access to market information, which impacts negatively women entrepreneur’ business performance. Consequently, the study developed a mobile marketing application to tackle women entrepreneurs’ access to market information challenge, supporting sales increase by connecting women entrepreneur sellers with potential customers, promoting cost reduction of searching for market for their products and fostering expansion of their business networks. The application considers the socio-economic characteristics of the women entrepreneurs including literacy, native language, interface usability, all of which was designed, developed and implemented under a participatory design scheme.
The doctoral dissertation of Master of Public Administration in Human Resource Management Alsen Florian Kapinga, entitled Mobile Technology for Empowerment: A case of Women Entrepreneurs in Food Processing Sector in Tanzania will be examined at the Faculty of Science and Forestry. The opponent in the public examination will be Professor Judy Van Biljon, University of South Africa and the custos will be Professor Markku Tukiainen, University of Eastern Finland.
Photo available for download at
https://mediabank.uef.fi/A/UEF+Media+Bank/36334?encoding=UTF-8
Link to the dissertation https://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-3365-2/urn_isbn_978-952-61-3365-2.pdf