Ally Y Simba (Dr)

Dr Ally Y Simba is the Executive Secretary of the East African Communications Organisations (EACO). He was appointed to the position on 1st August 2017 for a period of four years. Prior to his appointment he had served as a Director of Knowledge Management with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). He has more than 16 years of experience in communication industry where he has worked as an Engineer with a mobile phone operator, as a researcher, as regulator, and as policy maker with the central government of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Dr Simba was an Expert Researcher with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan from 2006 to 2011, where he was involved in research on the effect of exposure from mobile phones and base stations to the human health. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Manager for Planning and Research with the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. From 2013 to 2015, he served as a Director of ICT at the Ministry of Communication Science and Technology (MCST) of the United Republic of Tanzania and later appointed to the position of Director General of TCRA in July 2015, a position he served until December, 2016. Dr Simba has published widely in peer-reviewed international journals and presented his research work in more than 30 international conferences. He participated actively in the work of the Study Group 5 of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) since 2009.

During his tenure at the MCST, Dr Simba was a group leader of the local expert group which formulated Tanzania’s Cyber laws, namely Cyber Crime Act and E-Transactions Act in 2015 and served as Project Director for the World Bank funded Regional Communication Infrastructure Programme (RCIP) as well as National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) Project.

Dr Simba is a Chartered Engineer, registered with the UK Engineering Council and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK, where he served an International Professional Registration Advisor for Engineering Professional Registration from April 2011 to March 2014. He is also a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dr Simba appears in 11th Edition of the Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, 2011–2012. He was the recipient of the Japanese Government Scholarship (Monbusho Scholarship) from 2000 to 2006. Since 2018, Dr Simba has been serving as a member of Joint Steering Committee of the Center of Excellence for ICT in East Africa.

Dr Simba received his BSc (Hons.) degree in Electronics Science and Communications from the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998, and the ME and PhD degrees in Electronics and Information Engineering from Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, in 2003 and 2006, respectively.