Home>Anna Osterlow
Research Interest(s): History of computing (with a focus on Africa), history of knowledge, history of technologies, global history, transnational networks of experts
Discipline(s): History
Biography
linkedin.com/in/anna-osterlow
REsearch
My dissertation focuses on the history of computing in Nigeria and Senegal, from the 1960s to the late 1980s. More specifically, I look into two transnational computer projects, the first one being the African Education Centre established in 1964 in Ibadan, Nigeria. The second project i focus on took place twenty years later, in 1984 at the École Normale Supérieure in Dakar, Senegal and trained primary school children in programming on a micro-compurter.
My research aims to trace ho computing knowledge and technology was spread through transnational exchanges and circulations of people, ideas and technological artefacts.
education
- European Master in Global Studies, 2022, Leipzig University (Germany), Vienna University (Austria), Addis Abeba University (Ethiopia)
- Bachelor in politics, Philosophy and Economy, 2020, Witten/Herdecke University (Germany)
- Research Assistant, 2021-2023, Research Centre Global Dynamics Leipzig, projets: infrastructures & drones in Africa, land imaginaries and digitalisation in agriculture
COnferenceS
- “’Un ordinateur parlant le ouolof’ : Le projet ‘computers in education’ à Dakar et ses premiers pionniers de l'informatique dans les années 1980”, Journées Actualités de la Recherche à l’IMAF, Paris, 23 mai 2024.
- “The Most Modern Thing Happening in Nigeria: Early Computing and Ideas about Westernness, Africanness, and Modernity in Africa, 1960-1990“, 8th Lagos Studies Association Conference, University of Lagos, Nigeria, 28 juin 2024.
- “’A Computer Speaking Wolof’: Computer Education and the Transnational Networks of Early Computing Pioneers in Senegal and Nigeria, 1960-1990”, Conference Transnational Pathways to the Digital Age Computers and Societies in North-South Perspective, 1950s–2000s, Potsdam, Allemagne, 1 août 2024.
- „Training the computer literate worker of the future: Perspectives from two transnational computer projects in Senegal and Nigeria, 1964-1984“, Worlds of Digital Labour, 59th International Conference of Labour and Social History, Linz, Autriche, 27 septembre 2024.
ENSEIGNEMENTS
Histoire des mondes contemporains XXe-XXIe siècles: Droits, sécurité et insécurité. (Conférence de méthode rattachée au cours de M. Sabine Dullin), Campus de Sciences Po Paris
Introduction to African History since 1800 (Teaching Assistant pour M. Florence Bernault), Campus de Sciences Po Paris
PUBLICATIONS
The Digital Orientalist. ‘African Tech Inventions, Inclusive AI and Digital Innovation: A Historical Perspective’, 15 October 2024. https://digitalorientalist.com/2024/10/15/african- tech-inventions-inclusive-ai-and-digital-innovation-a-historical-perspective/.
« The 'Freedom Fighter' Bobi Wine. A video analysis of populist performance in Uganda », avril 2022, Université de Ghent.
fellowshipS & scholarships
Joint Centre for History and Economics Paris, since January 2024
Interdisciplinary Network of Technology and Entrepreneurship in Africa (INTERA), since October 2024
Membre du Conseil Scientifique de l’Africa Programme Sciences Po, since October 2024
Thesis Supervision
Thesis under the supervision of Jakob Vogel (Sciences Po, CHSP)
"Training the African “vanguard of the computer age”: A transnational history of Western computer firms in Africa, 1960s-1990s“
AWARDS
- "Best Graduate of the year 2022", Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Consortium, nov. 2022
- "Third Best Master Thesis 2022", Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Consortium, nov. 2022
