An Information Systems (IS) major Mohammed Chubado Ahmed has proffered an ingenious solution to Nigeria’s population data anomaly in his senior design project.
Despite various estimates from public organizations, many scholars still dispute the veracity of current population figures.
Mr. Ahmed’s solution was only one of more than 20 senior design projects exhibited on Friday, November 2019.
Graduating seniors of the School of Information Technology & Computing (SITC) presented their senior design projects to the AUN community and the public.
The poster presentations are an opportunity for senior students to professionally communicate their work to the general public and gain some practice in speech and delivery of technical information.
The Senior Design Project represents the single most important project in their BSc degree program. It allows the students to develop and demonstrate their ability to apply scientific and engineering principles to the solution of practical problems in information, technology, computing, engineering systems, and processes.
As we count down to their graduation, we take a deeper look into each design, the inspiration behind it, and what societal problems it seeks to address.
Mohammed Chubado Ahmed, an Information Systems major with a journalism minor, designed a digital indigene letter collection system. Mohammed observed that the method of collecting/accessing indigene letters in Yola South, his chosen case study is manual, so he decided to automate the system to make it more efficient.
"The manual process has made it easy for even non-indigenes to obtain this certificate, and the process itself is also characterized by several flaws.”
is design was inspired by the need to give back to his community as he has been taught to do at AUN. He believes using his knowledge of computing to address issues in his community is another way for him to impact the lives of his people.
Why this design? Mohammed says his project will make life easier for people. Indigene letter is a requirement for identification purposes and the Federal Government also uses this data for national planning.
With Mohammed’s proposal, citizens can easily access indigene letters online without going through the usual long procedures and avoid the hassles that accompany the process. He believes going from manual to digital will go a long way to ease the stress for people in his community.
He also believes the manual system isn't secure enough because anybody can walk into the local government secretariat, pay a sum, and collect an indigene letter more than once, and that might partly explain Nigeria's bloating official population figures as no reliable database tracks those who had collected indigene letters in the past. He is confident his design will help document those who collect the letters and checkmate fraud.
On his time at AUN, the IS graduating senior says he is grateful for his AUN experience while appreciating the Founder for the world-class education he is receiving.
On the value of his design, Mohammed Chubado Ahmed says he puts no value on it because he feels the knowledge he has gained at AUN is something he can transfer to society for the greater good.
He hopes the design will change people's mindset to let go of old ways of doing things and embrace a digital and more effective system. He wants people to think digital so that life can be easier.
He also hopes that other local governments around the country will adopt and implement this new system.
Reported by Togor Passa