<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><br><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div><div id="m_7585259119796900341m_7466309658796947146m_9160456881199844773m_-8825112771945123910m_-4290574617908877259mail-editor-reference-message-container"><blockquote><div id="m_7585259119796900341m_7466309658796947146m_9160456881199844773m_-8825112771945123910m_-4290574617908877259mail-editor-reference-message-container"><blockquote><div id="m_7585259119796900341m_7466309658796947146m_9160456881199844773m_-8825112771945123910m_-4290574617908877259mail-editor-reference-message-container"><p>Dear colleagues,</p>
<p>We are pleased to invite you to the next session of the Socio-History of Informatics Seminar 2025-2026. </p>
<p>This sixth and penultimate session of the 2025–2026 season will host:</p>
<p><strong>April 13, 3:00–5:00 pm</strong><br>
<strong>Anna Katharina Osterlow (Centre for History at Sciences Po / CERI, Paris)</strong><br>
for a presentation entitled:</p><div><b>Training “The African vanguard of the
computer age”: early computing and visions of
modernity and independence in Senegal and Nigeria,
1963-1984</b></div><div id="m_7585259119796900341m_7466309658796947146m_9160456881199844773m_-8825112771945123910m_-4290574617908877259description">
<p>The seminar will be held in <strong>hybrid format</strong> at <strong>UTC-Paris, 62 boulevard Sébastopol – 75003 Paris</strong> (Salle Danielle Quarante [IMI/IMI-QUARAN]). A connection link and the room number will be posted on this page before the event. To attend the seminar, please <b><i><a href="https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformatique-1757664332" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" target="_blank">register here</a></i></b><i>.</i></p>
<p><span style="font-size:13px"><b>Training “The
African vanguard of the computer age”: early
computing and visions of modernity and
independence in Senegal and Nigeria, 1963-1984</b></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:13px">In March 1982, an
ambitious, transnational group of teachers,
scientists, and computer experts from Senegal,
France, and the United States launched the project
“Computers in education” at the Ecole Normale
Supérieure in Dakar, Senegal, to explore the usage
of micro-computers in teaching and learning. The
exchanges within the transnational network of
experts around this project raised questions about
the “Westernness” of technology, the appropriate
ways to spread computing knowledge adapted to
Senegalese culture, and the conditions of
exporting computer hardware from the Global North
to the Global South. Similar questions were raised
in a much earlier computer project in 1964 in
Nigeria, where International Business Machines
(IBM) established the “African Education Centre”,
in cooperation with the University of Ibadan, to
train students from different African countries on
an IBM punch card computer. While evoking similar
questions on modernity and computing, this project
brought forward Nigerian aspirations of linking
computing with the efforts of nation-building and
decolonisation, and it was announced as a symbol
for the path that the African continent would
take. Considering the changing practices of
computing over the years, my research investigates
the entanglements between French and US American
state and private actors with African academics,
functionaries, teachers, and computer scientists,
from the 1960s to the late 1980s, in their
ambitions to spread computing. Thereby, my
research intends to shed light on the “silence”
surrounding African computing history and its
embeddedness in the global dynamics of
decolonisation and the Cold War. My research is
based on archival materials from archives in
France, Senegal, Nigeria, and the US</span></p>
<p>The <strong>So.Hist-Info seminar</strong> is coordinated by<b> Mathilde Fichen, Camille Paloque-Bergès & Adrien
Tournier (HT2S lab Cnam, Paris) and Léandre
Bécard (COSTECH, UTC, Compiègne). </b>Please note that this will be the first session organized with our new co-coordinator, L. Bécard.</p>
<p>More info on the seminar : </p>
<p><a href="https://sohistinfo.github.io/" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" target="_blank">https://sohistinfo.github.io/</a></p>
<p><a href="https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/seminaire-socio-histoire-de-l-informatique-1490565.kjsp" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" target="_blank">https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/seminaire-socio-histoire-de-l-informatique-1490565.kjsp</a></p>
<p>Link to the online announcement : <a href="https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/anna-katharina-osterlow-training-the-african-vanguard-of-the-computer-age-early-computing-and-visions-of-modernity-and-independence-in-senegal-and-nigeria-1963-1984-1605532.kjsp" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" target="_blank">
https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/anna-katharina-osterlow-training-the-african-vanguard-of-the-computer-age-early-computing-and-visions-of-modernity-and-independence-in-senegal-and-nigeria-1963-1984-1605532.kjsp</a></p>
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