Boubakar Barry

Chief Executive Officer

Boubakar Barry

Chief Executive Officer

Boubakar is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Since he took office, he has led the growth of WACREN to its current stature. He is in charge of the effective and efficient management of the organisation, as mandated by the Board.

He was instrumental to the establishment of national research and education networks in Africa and a key player in the conduct of the feasibility study of the EU-funded AfricaConnect project.

From 1997 to 2020, Boubakar was Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Network Information Centre of Senegal that manages the country-code top-level domain .SN. He was Director of the Computer Centre of the premier university of Senegal (Cheikh Anta Diop University) from 1998 to 2006, where he also lectured Computer Networks and Electronics.  As Director of the Computer Centre, Boubakar established the first Cisco Regional Academy in Francophone West and Central Africa in 2004, serving 13 local Cisco academies throughout Senegal.

In 2006, he joined the Association of African Universities (AAU), based in Accra, as the Coordinator of the Research and Education Networking Unit (RENU). During his seven years at AAU, Boubakar facilitated the establishment of research and education networks in Africa, particularly in West and Central Africa.

He holds a master’s degree in Nuclear Physics and PhD in Nuclear Electronics, all obtained at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany.

Omo Oaiya

Chief Strategy Officer

Omo Oaiya

Chief Strategy Officer

Omo is WACREN’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO). He leads the development, execution and sustenance of WACREN business plans and initiatives. He was the pioneer Chief Technology Officer of the organisation and continues to work with development partners and sister regional networks on the technical development of high-capacity Internet network infrastructure for research and education.

Before WACREN, he was CEO of Datasphir Solutions Limited, a private sector consultancy company. A certified SIM3 Auditor, he uses the model developed with the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) to assess the governance, performance and function of security teams and processes.

Omo leads the LIBSENSE programme aimed at building the information management capability of librarians and researchers, fostering communities of practice, and strengthening local services to support open science and research in Africa.

He has taken courses towards a Masters in Learning Technology from Birkbeck College, University of London and has a Pharmacy degree from the University of Benin, Nigeria.

Edward Banjo

Senior Networking & Infrastructure Engineer

Edward Banjo

Senior Networking & Infrastructure Engineer

Edward leads the networking and infrastructure domain of WACREN’s operations. Having worked in the telecommunication industry for over 15 years, he has invaluable experience and rare acumen in handling networking and infrastructure.

He kicked off his career at Viaoni Group as a line support engineer, and in the course of his career gleaned exposure and global best practices from leading OEMs and technologies.

He understands that innovation never happens in a vacuum, this makes him value, build and sustain valuable teams and assets. Collaboration and diversity of perspective fuels his work. His avid ability to re-imagine things and the world around him gets the best of him.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Communication and Electronic Engineering from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

Tiguidanke Bah

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Tiguidanke Bah

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Tigui works at WACREN as the Executive Assistant to the CEO. She provides support to the CEO in a variety of ways including administrative tasks, liaison functions, as well as secretarial duties..

Tigui hasa  wide experience in office management and secretaryship, having had solid education and been in practise for several years.

Eric Attou

Network and Systems Engineer

Eric Attou

Network and Systems Engineer

Eric is WACREN’s Network and Systems Engineer (SNE), after moving from Université d’Abomey-Calavi where he served as a senior level IT Manager since 2007. At WACREN, Eric works closely with the CTO to deploy the network infrastructure and accompanying services to our community.

Eric has proficient knowledge in Windows, Linux system and network administration, System, network and application security and penetration testing and DevOps engineering.

While at Université d’Abomey-Calavi, he was in charge of connection of 29 remote sites to the central campus.. As a system administrator, he worked on installation, configuration of various system and networking services. He has worked with Université de Ouagadougou and Université de Lomé, as associate consultant in charge of student management system audit and the deployment of Invenio (a Library Management System), respectively. Between 2005 and 2006, Eric served as the IT Engineer at OTI (Omnium des Télécommunications et de l’Internet, Benin), where he oversaw the implementation and deployment of customer authentication and billing system (PostgreSQL database), development of Incident management system and handling users and customers supports.

Eric holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Université de Parakou and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Université d’Abomey-Calavi.

Ivan Yeboah

Finance and Administration Officer

Ivan Yeboah

Finance and Administration Officer

Ivan is the Finance and Administration Officer (FAO). He is in charge of day to day management of finance, accounting and administration matters at WACREN.

Ivan has close to 10 years of experience in Finance, Accounting and Administration. Prior to Joining WACREN, he was with LMI Holdings, a highly diversified Ghanaian conglomerate with interests in Ghanaian ICT sector, utilities, logistics, property development and construction, as an Accountant, Asset Manager and Accounting systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Administrator at various times.

He is an entrepreneur and has held various leadership roles in various youth groups in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

Effah Amponsah

Communication and Marketing Officer

Effah Amponsah

Communication and Marketing Officer

Effah is WACREN’s Communication and Marketing Officer in charge of internal and external communication and marketing.  He is a consummate professional who blends the art and science of marketing and communication to produce value for companies he has worked for, for close to 15 years.

Before taking the position at WACREN, he was the stop-gap Group Head of Communication for CDH Investment Holdings - a diversified services group of companies with interests in banking, insurance, hospitality, manufacturing, health and asset management.

Effah is an accredited public relations professional (APR) by the Institute of Public Relations, (IPR - Ghana), where he has been a trainer for the Continuous Professional Development (CPD Programme) in Project Communication. He has also been a consultant at the London School of Public Relations – Ghana, as a trainer.

His area of expertise are public relations, branding and brand marketing communications, journalism, digital marketing and project communication. Having worked with several media outlets he is very familiar with content creation and distribution for print, broadcast and digital media.

Effah holds a Master’s degree in Communication Studies and a Bachelor of Arts from Ghana’s premier university - University of Ghana, Legon.

Sefakor Ankora

DevOps Engineer

Sefakor Ankora

DevOps Engineer

Sefakor is a DevOps Engineer at WACREN. He comes onboard with more than seven years of broad range experience in information technology. His main areas of expertise include developing, deploying, and automating cloud infrastructure using Code. He is pretty proficient in some high-end open-source and proprietary DevOps tools.

Sefakor holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information and Communication Technology from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). Before joining WACREN, he was a software engineer at GetInnotized and the National Coordinator for Ghana Code Club.

He holds a number of certifications on popular cloud platforms including Microsoft Certified Trainer, Microsoft Azure Developer Associate, and Microsoft Certified Azure AI Fundamentals.  On Amazon, he is a AWS certified cloud practitioner and AWS SysOps Administrator. He is also a certified Cybersecurity professional.

Ouattara Koudoussou

NOC Engineer

Ouattara Koudoussou

NOC Engineer

Koudoussou is a NOC Engineer at WACREN. Before joining us, he was a Networks and Systems Administrator at BFIX - the Burkina Faso Internet Exchange Point, where he was in charge of the provisioning of services as well as a host of other key tasks.

Koudoussou also worked at ANPTIC, the national agency for promotion of ICT in Burkina Faso; there he focused on the study and implementation of the National IoT platform on the G-Cloud.

He has a Master’s degree in Networks and Systems with a specialisation in Cybersecurity and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a specialisation in Networks and Systems, with honours, all from the Nazi Boni University in Burkina Faso.

He continues to upgrade his knowledge in his professional field as he participates in continuous professional development programmes in areas like Mutually Agreed Norms Routing for Security (MANRS), cybersecurity and internet governance.

Olalekan Allade

NOC Engineer

Olalekan Allade

NOC Engineer

Olalekan (Ola) is a NOC Engineer at WACREN. Derrick has worked on some key infrastructure projects in his country - Benin. He led server infrastructure development, quality assurance, staging and production systems. He was also actively involved in enhancing the availability of infrastructure through enterprise-wide planning, testing, efficient implementation and comprehensive support.

Ola was also the Network Administrator for the SPTIC project at the University of Abomey Calavi (UAC) in Benin.

In his new role, Ola is helping to develop the network infrastructure and services required to meet the project objectives of the Africa Digital Campus project in Benin and Burkina Faso.

Derrick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He has LPIC-101 and LPIC-102 at the Linux Professional Institute.