Harry Dugmore

MTN Chair of Media and Mobile Communication

Professor Harry Dugmore is the newly appointed MTN Chair of Media and Mobile Communication at the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa. In his position at MTN Chair at Rhodes, Harry is running a major project funded by the USA-based Knight Foundation entitled "Iindaba Ziyafika - The news is coming". This US million project aims, among other things, to better equip media producers in Africa with the skills and the software to use mobile phones to democratise both news production and news dissemination.

Before joining Rhodes, Harry worked for the office of the President in South Africa creating long-term scenarios for the both the country and the African continent. The results of this two-year research project, "South Africa 2025: The future we choose", outlining three scenarios for South Africa, was published in September 2008. Harry's research interests include the use of mobile communications to encourage long-term behaviour change (especially in field of HIV and AIDS field), using cell phone technology to match producers to markets in developing countries, and the use of cell phones by government to provide better services and information to citizens.

Harry has PhD in history from the University of the Witwatersrand, and lives and works in Grahamstown.