Esther Anegbe is a new graduate from Carleton University’s Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program. She entered the program with an undergrad degree in Computer Engineering and a technical background in system and network administration, cloud solutions implementation, and support for small businesses. Esther is originally from Lagos, Nigeria and came across the TIM program while researching where to further her education in information technology. Esther explains it was the TIM program’s combination of IT and business management that caught her attention - she had found few masters programs that offered courses integrating the two fields.

After being accepted into the TIM program, Esther made her first trip to Canada in mid-February. “Nothing prepared me for the cold temperature. The ice, however, was thawed by the warmth of the Canadians I related with and the kindness of the people I met,” says Esther, describing her arrival to Canada. Esther notes that she was intrigued by what the TIM program described to offer on their website, but was more impressed after seeing first-hand what the program encompassed. “When I got into Canada, I was more impressed with the ecosystem built around the TIM program. The Lead To Win (LTW) boot camps and opportunity reviews, the start-ups being built by TIM students, and the network of people/organizations provided more than just academic offerings,” she says.

In her first term in the program, Esther took a TIM course which shed light on cybersecurity in critical infrastructures. As required by the course, she worked with a group on a TIM Review article (monthly academic journal) published last June that examined three widely used cybersecurity maturity models:

1. The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) framework for improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity;
2.  The United States Department of Energy’s Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2);
3.  The CERT Resilience Management Model (CERT RMM) in the light of IT project management.

The article also proposes a set of cybersecurity extensions to the Project Management Maturity Model (PjM3).  

In Esther’s last two terms, she worked on her Masters of Engineering project, which involved the creation of a community design for an eHealth start-up in Lagos, Nigeria. Esther describes her work on this project in more depth:

“To increase adoption of the firm’s open source electronic medical records (EMR), an EMR implementers’ community was proposed and designed. This was done by learning from Drupal and OpenMRS communities and with the use of the community design canvas developed by my project supervisor, Dr. Michael Weiss. The implementers’ community is intended to enable skill development, job creation and increased adoption in the eHealth sector.”

The TIM program, Esther explains, has enabled her with a “better understanding of how to build an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) business or serve in a managerial capacity in innovative firms”. The courses she has taken have led her to adopt a more business-oriented perspective when it comes to technology products and services and has prompted her curiosity regarding what it is that customers value.

One of Esther’s most memorable moments thus far in the TIM program was the TIM-Africa event that celebrates students and alumni from African countries. The event was held just weeks after Esther had joined the TIM program and she commented, “It felt like home for a few hours”.

Now having completed her degree, Esther plans to take on exciting projects that involve cloud solutions that optimize business processes, open-source software, and communities as well as building an ICT service business surrounding these aspects.