Dr. Prudence Kadebu (Pr. Eng.)

Dr. Prudence Kadebu (Pr. Eng.) is an esteemed Senior Partner at EVSEG Consultancy and Partners, bringing over 20 years of academic and industry experience in technology and engineering. Currently, she serves as the Deputy Director of Research, Innovation and Industrialisation at Arrupe Jesuit University, where she also lectures in the School of Engineering and ICT. She is a recognised leader in her field and a passionate advocate for emerging technologies and their implications. She plays a vital role in the Innovation Drive Assessment Committee for POTRAZ and has contributed to the strategic foresight co-creation in the establishment of Zimbabwe's National Innovation Acceleration Centre.

As a strong supporter of women's education and empowerment, Dr. Kadebu is on the Executive Committee of the Forum for African Women Educationalists Zimbabwe (FAWEZI) and serves as Vice-Chairperson of the ZICT division of ZIE. She is also a founding Trustee of the Zimbabwe Conference of ICT (ZCICT) and Women in Academia. Her research interests include Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Software Security Engineering, Cybersecurity, IoT, and Extended Reality. Dr. Kadebu is particularly passionate about Technology Translation and child online safety, inspiring young minds to pursue constructive technology development.

In academia, she lectures in Artificial Intelligence from undergraduate to postgraduate levels. Dr. Kadebu previously served as the pioneering head of the Software Engineering Department at the Harare Institute of Technology and the Computer Engineering Department at the University of Zimbabwe. Her contributions to ICT education have been recognised through various awards, including a Techwomen Fellowship in 2018 from the Institute of International Education under the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, where she was mentored in Project Management at X (formerly Twitter) in San Francisco.

Her academic qualifications include a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science, an MTech in Software Engineering, and a recently completed Ph.D. in Engineering from Amity University Haryana, India. Prior to her academic journey, she worked as a Systems Support Analyst at Africansun Pvt Ltd.