Curriculum vitae
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  Last updated: May 2000


Personal Particulars

Educational Background

Employment Record Responsibilities
offices and Committee  Membership Other Activities Research
Consultancies Conferences Computing Experience REFEREE

1. Personal Particulars
Full Name Frederick Brown Kamwaza
Date of Birth 28th July 1956
Place of Birth Village: Kapalamula, T/A: Msamala, District: Machinga, MALAWI
Nationality Malawian, Passport No. 0673600
Marital Status Married with 5 children
Current Position: Senior Lecturer
Permanent Address Village: Chona, T/A Phalula, District: Balaka, MALAWI.
Contact Address The Polytechnic, P/Bag 303, Chichiri, Blantyre 3, MALAWI
Phone : (265) 670411 (o) | (265) 643204 (h)
Fax: (265) 670578: E-Mail fred@sdnp.org.mw

2. Educational Background
Dates Institution Qualification
1983-85 University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology Wales, UK M.Sc.(Digital Electronics) (1985)
1977-81 University of Malawi Chancellor College Zomba. B.Sc. (Pass with Credit) (1981)
1973-77 Soche Hill Secondary School Limbe, Malawi MCE (1977)
1964-73 Mponda F.P. School Lirangwe, Malawi PSLC (1973)

3. Employment Record
July 1999-July 2000 On sabbatical Leave
Jan 1997-July 1999 Vice Principal of the Malawi Polytechnic.
1995-1998 Head of department, Department of Mathematics and Computing.
1991 Promoted to Senior Lecturer in Mathematics & Computing.
1989-94 Head of department, Department of Technical Education
1985-89 Lecturer in Physics and Mathematics, Department of Mathematics and Science
1983-85 On Study Leave to the United Kingdom pursuing a masters degree in Digital Electronics
1981-83 Staff Associate in Physics, Department of Maths and Science, University of Malawi.

4. My Last Official Responsibilities
Office of the
Vice Principal
 
As Vice Principal of the college, my main task was to assist the Principal. My work included general administrative duties and day-to-day running of the institution. As Vice Principal,  I was responsible for all academic matters including examinations and maintenance of students’ academic records. Here is a list of the responsibilities I held: 
  • Advising the Principal on all academic matters 
  • Advising the college on all Information Technology strategies 
  • Preparation of Examination Timetables, and invigilation schedules 
  • Serving as the College Chief Examination Officer 
  • Chairman, College Appointments Committee (Recruitment) 
  • Chairman, Support Staff Disciplinary Committee 
  • Chairman, Housing Committee
  • Chairman, College Library Committee 
  • Chairman, Student’s disciplinary Committee 
  • Chairman, Student’s Selection Committee 
  • Member, The Malawi Board of Governors 
  • Member, The Appointments and Disciplinary Committee of the Board of Governors 
  • Member, The Finance Committee of  the Board of Governors 
  • Member, The University Academic Courses Committee 
  • Member, The University Academic Planning Committee 
  • The Vice Principal also deputies for the Principal of the college 
  • Teaching Computing Classes. 

5. Offices and Committee Membership

1995-97

College Representative to the University of Malawi SENATE.

1989-93

Chairman, The Polytechnic Computer Management Team.

1987-92

Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) 

1987-90

Faculty Representative to the University Research and Publications Committee.

1987-90

Faculty Representatives to the University Academic and Administrative Staff Welfare Committee.

1986-89

Head of Section, Physics laboratories, Department of Maths and Science

6. Other University and College Activities
1997-1999 Running an Intranet for the Polytechnic. The Local Area Network (LAN) is also connected to an Internet Service Provider  for Internet access and e-mail services.

Design  of  LAN
1997

I designed and implemented a LAN  at the Polytechnic connecting over 100 PCs and other peripherals. The system was connected to two servers, a Novel NetWare Server and a Windows NT Server with the other PCs as clients.

Computer
Management
1993-2000

I am responsible for day-to-day management of the LAN  at the Polytechnic. I am responsible for both software and hardware maintenance, and development in-house software for keeping college records.

Examinations
1988-99

Responsible for compiling examination results for the college.

Timetables
1989-99

Responsible for preparation of centralized classroom schedules for the college.

SADC Project
1989-92

I was directly responsible for the execution of the SADCC Manpower development Project at the Polytechnic. My duties included general management of the project funds, identifying and ordering of project equipment (and Consumable materials) and general personnel administration of the SADCC students.

 

  7. Recently Completed  Projects
The Malawi
Polytechnic Site
Jan - May 2000
I have just completed developing a new student-tracking system for the Polytechnic.  This system takes advantage of the web technology to publish students-progress records on the Internet.  (Visit the URL: http://kachere.sdnp.org.mw to see the range of information available) With relevant security authentication, students are now able to read personal academic records, timetables and other useful information at this site.  The system is based on a database program I wrote in Visual Basic and interfaced to the Malawi Polytechnic WWW Server.

A Cds-isis database containing a list of local book-titles and articles at the Malawi Polytechnic Library is integrated to the site.  This involved writing software for converting the format and linking to the search engine.
Rule of Law
Website
Feb 2000
This site is part of a bigger project looking at eleven organizations in the country that are connected with the rule-of-law.  The completed site can be accessed at http://www.sdnp.org.mw/~fred/law/index.html. This site looks at the Law Reform & Law Revision, The Law Commission Calendar, Law Commission Reports and Personnel.
Phone Directory
Jan 2000
I completed an Electronic Phone Directory for the Malawi Government Section.  This is based on the Blue-Pages of the newly released Malawi Post and Telecomms (hardcopy) directory.   This site was sponsored and mounted by the Malawi SDNP.  You may visit the site at the following URL: http://www.sdnp.org.mw/phone/gov/index.html.  

At the moment I am working on the rest of the Phone Directory.  This   section will be running on an 'msql SQL database server' an will be accessed through Dynamic HTML pages using the MsqlPerl interface.  A second version will be a compressed set of HTML pages that would fit on a single floppy.  When decompressed, it would make the phone book accessed offline.

Environmental
Website
December, 1999
Environmental Website: http://www.sdnp.org.mw/enviro/index.html. This is a site for the Ministry of  Environmental Affairs. It covers the:
Accounting System
Aug-Sep 1999
I developed an accounting system for the Malawi SDNP Internet Service Provider.  The system looks at the 'Cisco-Secure' accounting data logs for the Internet users and generates bills.  It prints invoices and sends email to all users.

Current Research
Interests
May 2000

Low Cost Radio links for Computers: I am interested in the possibility of running Local Area Network using radio links. This would tackle the problem we have at the Polytechnic of scattered office accommodation. The project would look at the design of a small FM radio transmitter/receiver equipment and interface software to connect the computers through an Ethernet Card or a Modem.  Preliminary studies show that this is feasible and could cover a range of 10 km radius or more.

 

 

  8. Other Research work done

1990-91

The staff situation at the Polytechnic: This research looked at aspects affecting the quality of teaching at the Polytechnic. Student-staff ratios, motivation of staff and levels of expertise in each discipline of study. (RPC funded project, 1990).
1988-91 Computerized the College Examination Processing System. Faculty reports, senate reports, and student notification letters were now generated from the grades entered. Student’s 'Course Warning letters' and 'Serious Warning letters' were also generated from the same information.

Computerized the College Timetables System. The college used to waste a lot of resources in terms of classroom space and expertise. This system reported any clashes as the information was being entered. Making correction to the timetable was greatly simplified, and as a result, room allocation and even expertise allocation was optimized. We were now able to have a centralized timetable, sharing the scares room and human resources.

1987-88

Instrumentation for the investigation of the micro-climate of Lake Malawi. I looked at the design of instrumentation for measuring temperature, humidity and pressure over the Lake by remote sensing techniques similar to those used by weather satellites.
1984-85 A Digital Communication through the Mains MODEM.   This research looked at the possibility of transferring data between computers over the mains wiring already existing in buildings. (M.Sc. Thesis-Research Project).

  9. Consultancies
Training
1986-2000
I have organized and run a number of computer-based short courses in the following areas: 
  • Website Development
  • Electronic Spreadsheets ( Excel, Lotus, Multiplan ) 
  • Databases (Access, DBase IV,  DBase III ) 
  • Word Processing (Microsoft Office, Lotus Suite, SWP ) 
  • Programming (Visual Basic, C, Pascal, Basic) 
  • Introduction to Computers (Information Technology) 
  • Operating System (Windows 98, Win95, MS DOS, BTOS)

Marketing
Survey, 1991

Marketing the B.Sc. Technical Education Programme: Visited Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa, Marketing the programme and following up on the progress of graduates who had gone through the in-service programme of the 'SADCC Technical Education Manpower Development Programme' at the Polytechnic.

Survey
1987

A survey on the amount and nature of energy used in Small and Medium size industries in Malawi:  This survey was conducted for INDEFUND Ltd.

  10. Conferences

1999

Attended the First Node Operators Training Workshop, held at the Polytechnic, Blantyre, Malawi.

1998

Attended the International Workshop on Internet at Livingstonia in Zimbabwe.

1994

Attended the first Regional Programme for Trainers of Information Analysts in Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

1992

Attended the Fifth International Workshop on the Use of Microcomputers in Science and Mathematics Education in Africa, held in Harare, Zimbabwe.

1990

Attended an international conference on Technical teaching in the 1990s, Huddersfield, UK.

1987

Attended a conference on Advanced Techniques in Computational physics, Trieste, ITALY.

11. Computing Experience
1998-2000
Operating systems Linux Operating System, Windows 98, Windows 95
Programming CGI programming with Perl, Visual Basic, Turbo C++, SQL
Network Management TCP/IP & Routing, Firewalls, IP Masquerading, IP Chains, Server Side Includes, Setting up WWW Apache Web Server
Databases MySql SQL Relational Database, PostgreSQL Object-Relational Database System, msql SQL database server, Access
Web Development tools: Corel Website, NetStudio, ht//Dig Search Engine, Microsoft Front Page, Netscape Composer, Dreamweaver, OmniHTTPd Professional, Internet Explorer, Java Scripts, HTML Forms and Dynamic Web pages
Installations & Configurations Installation of Red Hat Linux Operating System, v:5.2, v6.0, Setting up PPP links, Windows 98, Windows NT server, Novel NetWare Server.
Project: Developing software for analyzing 'Cisco Secure' accounting outputs and generating accounting reports of Internet usage for people connected to the Malawi SDNP Internet Service Provider.
Other Computer Experiences
1994-1998
Operating Systems: UNIX, Windows 95, Windows 3.11, BTOS, MS DOS
Programming tools: Visual BASIC, Perl, Turbo C++, Turbo BASIC,   Reduce, LISP, MODULA 2, BTOS BASIC, IBM GWBASIC, QBASIC and Pascal
Web authoring tools: Publisher, Netscape Composer, Corel Website
Browsers: Netscape Communicator, Internet Explorer
Databases: Access, DBASE III+, DBASE II, DBASE, FoxBASE
Office Tools: Microsoft Office, Lotus Suite, Perfect Office,  Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, Symphony, Multiplan
Publishers: Microsoft Publisher, PageMaker, Ventura
Statistics: M-Stat, SPSS, Epi-Info
Graphical: Adobe PhotoShop, PrintShop, Auto Sketch, Auto CAD
Email: Outlook Express, Pegasus Mail, Front Door
Installations and Configuration Windows Operating Systems, Modems, Network Cards, Sound Cards, Scanners etc
BTOS Operating
System

1986-95
Operating Systems: As a Systems Manager at the Polytechnic, I became quite conversant with the BTOS operating system and MS DOS. In the later years, as Windows and virus were creeping in, I became quite familiar with the operating environment.

Hardware
1994

Worked for Burco Electronics, a computer dealing company, as a Computer Hardware Engineer for 3 month when the college was temporarily closed.

Novel NetWare 
1991-91

Attended a course on Network Administration at the Polytechnic run by Accer Agencies from South Africa. 

Pascal and
Assembly Language 
1983-85

As part of my training at Masters Level, at University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, I was introduced to Pascal Programming, Assembly Language, VMS Operating System, BBC BASIC, MS DOS and various graphic packages. My main project required proficiency in Pascal and Assembly Language programming.

BASIC
Programming 
1979-81

I did BASIC as part of my undergraduate training at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College.  This was my first go at computers.

12. REFEREES

Professional
Expert

Dr. Paulos Nyirenda  The Malawi SDNP, Private Bag 303, Chichiri, Blantyre 3, MALAWI 
phone: (265) 674900;
Email: Paulos@sdnp.org.mw

 

Mr. H G Thembakako Blantyre Hotels, P.O. Box 21, Blantrye, MALAWI 
phone: (265) 620 147;
Email: BlantyreHotels@sdnp.org.mw

 

Mr. M Mbendera Mbendera-Chibambo & Associates
P.O. Box 785, Blantyre, Malawi