Ulrike Rivett

Ulrike Rivett is an experienced Professor at the School of IT at the University of Cape Town, a globally leading centre of IT and ICT4D research. Prof Rivett is a permanent resident of SA and has a track record of mentoring the next generation of African women STEM scholars at UCT, particularly the UCT alumnae who are now academics in Computer Science, IS and IT across the African continent. She has successfully led 12 multi-country grants from international funders such as Gates Foundation, the Worldbank, DAAD, the EU and others. 

Over the last two decades, her research has focused on the application and use of ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) to support the delivery of basic amenities and services to under-resourced communities in developing countries. The innovative use of existing technologies – in her case mobile phones and other ICTs – offers the opportunity to create a virtual infrastructure between decision-makers, which requires current and reliable information, and stakeholders who can provide this information through appropriate technologies. The need for information cuts across disciplines and her contribution over the last decade has been to ‘connect the dots’ between the knowledge of specialists and the creation of a solution that offers an innovative approach to existing problems. By introducing ICTs in seemingly unrelated fields - such as the health and water sectors - she has been able to develop technologies that cross conventional boundaries of knowledge, decision-making and stakeholder engagement.

Professor Rivett graduated from the Technische Universität München, Germany, in 1994 with a Dipl.-Ing.univ in Land Surveying. She received a scholarship for her PhD in the then Dept. of Land Surveying, today the Dept. of Geomatics at the University of Cape Town. In 2002 she was employed in the Dept. of Civil Engineering. She leads the iCOMMS Research Team at the University of Cape. This team's research focuses on understanding the use of ICT4D systems for the benefit of society. They achieve this by engaging proactively with academia and rural communities, and by implementing their findings to achieve impact beyond academic boundaries. She has served as the Director of the University of Cape Town's School of IT - a bridging of the university's Science, Commerce, and Humanities Faculties, and offering a wide variety of courses and programmes to suit students' personal interests and aptitudes. She is currently the Deputy Dean for Undergraduate in the Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town.