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Black community in Germany is growing and so is the number of highly
qualified African descendants actively participating in shaping the
future of the black community within and outside of Germany. One of
these skilled, dynamic Africans is Adetoun Adebisi. The following
portrait is the result of an interview Afritopic conducted with Adetoun. |
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The Information Technology sector is no more a domain
reserved for men alone. This is very true particularly in the
industrialized countries. In these countries, women have been working
and demonstrating their expertise in various technological sectors.
Comparing the industrialized nations to developing countries in Africa,
the media talk of the technology/digital divide. But Africans, despite all the
difficulties facing the continent, are not ready to loose the race. In
fact, the African women are keeping abreast the latest information
technological development as their men counterparts. Adetoun Adebisi,
the Nigerian-born graduate of Wirtschaftsingenieur (business
economist/industrial engineer) belongs to this group of women.
Adetoun
Adebisi came to Germany from Nigeria with her mother as a teenager, speaking only her
mother tongue, the Yoruba language. She attended the German language
school, followed by an assessment, which classified her as good enough
to start with the German Hauptschule (junior high school). After
only six months, she was withdrawn from the school and advised to attend
the Realschule (lower high school). Adetoun moved from the
Realschule to Gynasium (high school), where she later passed the Arbitur
(High School/Advanced Levels Certificate). With the Arbitur, she could
apply to study at a University. She opted to attend the Wirtschafts-
und Verwaltungsschule (Business Economics and Administration
school), for a training and qualification as Wirtschaftsassistentin (business
economics assistant). On completing the training, she decided to have an
advanced understanding of economics and information technology. She
applied to the Fachhochschule Mannheim
and was offered a place to study Wirtschaftingenieurwessen
(business economics/industrial engineering). |
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Adetoun
Adebisi
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At the University, Toun encountered a
series of insulting and discriminating attitudes from one of the
professors. The situation became unbearable, but she did not allow
racism to debar her from achieving her goals. She transferred to the
Technical University Cologne, where she successfully completed her
studies with very good grade. The topic of her thesis Die
betriebswirtschaftliche Nuetzung
von Unternehmensportale unter Beruechsichtigung der Wissensmanagement
Aspekte (The Economical Application of Corporate Portals taking the
Knowledge Management Aspects into consideration) indicates Adetoun's
foresight for upcoming developments in the information technology
sector. The thesis analyzes the various ways companies could implement
information and commercial portals cost-effectively, while taking the
novel concept of knowledge management into consideration. The basic
concept of knowledge management allows organizations to identify the
knowledge/know-how possessed by the organization/employees, store the
knowledge, share/retrieve the knowledge and create/acquire new knowledge
when necessary in order to gain market advantage over competitors. The
concept of knowledge management is a continuous process that is supposed
to be part of the organization’s culture with the goal of keeping the
organization at the top in its business/service field.
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projects, where she has applied her technological and organization
skills. An example of such projects is the organization of the Black
Media Congress 2003 in Berlin, which provided a networking platform for
Black professionals in various fields within and ouside of Germany. In
this project, she worked as a team member of cyberNomads together with
the teams from other organizations such as the Initiative Schwarze
Deutsche(ISD) to make the project a success. She has been working
closely with cyberNomads, an agency founded by her fiancee, Sun Leegba Love, and
Abdel Rahman Satti. As a member of the team, she helped implement a
content management system (CMS), which is to serve as an e-knowledge
platform for the Black/Afro-German history. |
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Practicing
the principles of knowledge management, Adetoun is ever ready to share
her knowledge with others. According to her, cyberNomads has acquired
several gigabytes of content, in particular Afro-centric contents. With
adequate financial support, she could organize seminars to teach people
how to upload contents into the CMS. This is extremely necessary to keep
the system alive and useful to the public.
The current projects of cyberNomads
are also of great interest to Adetoun. These include the First Black
German International Literary Prize (the May Ayim Award), the Black
Atlantic Project as well as the next Black Media Congress. Talking about
the projects, Adetoun explains the importance of each project for Blacks
and the German society in general. According to her, one of the
high-profile organizations in Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House
of Cultures of the World) approached cyberNomads and offered the agency
cooperation partnership for the projects. The May Ayim Award is
organized in recognition of the extra-ordinary groundwork and
achievement of the Afro-German activist and author, May Ayim, who fought
against discrimination, racism and for black-empowerment in Germany. The
Black Atlantic project is conceptualized from the Book The Black Atlantic:
Modernity and Double Consciousness (1992) by Paul Gilroy, a professor of
sociology and cultural studies. The project deals with African Diaspora
from the transnational perspective. |
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in a dynamic cultural network. The project thus employs this dynamic
network, as the basis for the events, which would include visual arts,
movies, theater, literature, conferences and dance programs. By taking
part in such complex projects, Adetoun has gained an insight into
project development processes and event management in a high-profile
organization. 'I have acquired project and event management skills
that I would like to apply in various fields including the media', she
says.The mainstream media is one the target area of work for Adetoun.
She has already taken the first step and made contacts to RTL and ZDF.
In her opinion, it is important that people of African descent make a
breakthrough to the mainstream media. |
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| The issue of the Black movement in
Germany is high on Adetoun's agenda of activities. 'I started
several years ago approaching people on the streets and distributing
information materials about the Black/Afro-German awareness', she
says. These activities led her to forming an organization called
Evidence of Conscience (EOC) in Mannheim. Adetoun is deeply interested
in promoting African culture in Europe. She organizes seminars and
workshops that are intended to introduce African cultures as practiced
by people of African descent in the Diaspora. An example of such
cultural seminars/workshops is the celebration of Kwanzaa. According to
Adetoun, Kwanzaa was adapted from the original African celebration by an
African-American, Dr. Maluana Karenga, in 1966. The name is derived from
the Zwahili word Kwanza with an additional 'a'.
Kwanza means fruits, thereby denoting Kwanzaa as celebration with fruits and relating it to the traditional harvest
celebrations of agricultural Africans. The purpose of the celebration is
to give African-Americans a sense of identity, purpose and direction
through the cultural link to Africa. Despite her numerous engagements in
various projects, Adetoun continues to promote the African culture
wherever he could and like Dr. Karenga, she believes that the cultural
component is of vital importance in the Black movement.
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| (November
2003) |
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