Ebubechukwu Uba is a doctoral researcher in Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose work sits at the intersection of critical technology design, co-design, community informatics, and AI policy and governance. Her research examines how technologies are designed and implemented to empower or exclude communities, particularly those in rural and low-resource settings.
Her academic goal is to strengthen her understanding of how technology and society interact, and to provide practical solutions by designing more equitable educational AI technology and policies for communities that are often overlooked. Her scholarship includes research and presentations on co-design, rural information literacy, and digital inclusion.
Her community-focused work began well before her current doctoral studies. Public reporting on her work notes that in Nigeria, she introduced children in public and school libraries to computers, library resources, and the internet, later organizing computer literacy programs for secondary school students and founding a computer club for children in rural communities.
That early experience helped shape her long-term commitment to digital equity and eventually led to the creation of StepUp Academy in 2023, a nonprofit education and digital inclusion initiative dedicated to expanding educational access for underserved children and young adults in Nigeria.
In 2026, that work earned her an invitation to present at Net Inclusion 2026, where she was selected to share her ongoing community work at StepUp Academy. She has also been consulted by similar community organizations on adopting co-design practices in their work.
Ebube’s story is marked by mentorship and service. After moving to the United States for doctoral study, she began publicly helping students interested in graduate education abroad. She used platforms like LinkedIn to guide people through the graduate school application journey and offer practical advice.
She also launched a weekly newsletter and accountability group as part of that effort to give back. At the U of I, she served through the Global Educators Program under International Student and Scholar Services, where she contributed to cross-cultural engagement on campus and was recognized with the C-U Scholar Awards for service to the Champaign-Urbana community.
Outside of her formal work, she has a strong love of learning, mentoring, and cultural engagement, including what she once described as her love for school seasons. Her future aspiration is to work in an academic faculty position, while bridging research and practice by building community-centered systems of education and digital inclusion that can grow across Nigeria, Africa, and beyond.
This article was reposted from the Illinois International website.