Maria Beebe

Director of Global Networks
email: beebem [at] wsu.edu
phone: +01 (509) 358-7947

Maria BeebeDr. Maria Beebe is the Director of Global Networks at the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide, Washington State University. She works as a program advisor to USAID’s Leland Initiative on the link between information and communication technologies (ICT) policy and sectoral applications, particularly on ICTs for education. She has provided leadership in the development of NetTel@Africa, a network for capacity building in ICT policy, regulation and applications. A key outcome of NetTel@Africa is the establishment of a collaborative Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Policy and Regulation Post-Graduate Diploma and Masters Program at several African institutions (Universities of Botswana, Dar Es Salaam, Zambia and Universities of Fort Hare, South Africa, Western Cape and Witswatersrand in South Africa). Moreover, NetTel@Africa includes an international peer to peer (regulator to regulator, academic to academic, and academic to regulator) component, a research component and community to community ICT applications program which exploits the synergies between telecommunications regulation and sectors, such as the education sector, as for example in setting universal service funds through eRates. She has provided overall direction in networking South African and American higher education institutions to exchange knowledge and form learning partnerships for sustainable development around the use of ICTs. Lessons learned from these experiences are highlighted in AfricaDotEdu, edited by Beebe, Koaukou, Oyeyinka and Rao.