Universities around the world especially those in developing countries are faced with the problem of delivering the level of information and communications technology (ICT) needed to facilitate teaching, learning, research, and development activities ideal in a typical university, which is needed to meet educational needs in-line with advancement in technology and the growing dependence on IT. This is mainly due to the high cost involved in providing and maintaining the needed hardware and software. A technology such as cloud computing that delivers on demand provisioning of IT resources on a pay per use basis can be used to address this problem. Cloud computing promises better delivery of IT services as well as availability whenever and wherever needed at reduced costs with users paying only as much as they consume through the services of cloud service providers. The cloud technology reduces complexity while increasing speed and quality of IT services provided; however, despite these benefits the challenges that come with its adoption have left many sectors especially the higher education skeptical in committing to this technology. This article identifies the reasons for the slow rate of adoption of cloud computing at university level, discusses the challenges faced and proposes a cloud computing adoption model that contains strategic guidelines to overcome the major challenges identified and a roadmap for the successful adoption of cloud computing by universities. The model was tested in one of the universities and found to be both useful and appropriate for adopting cloud computing at university level.

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The advancement of technology has opened pathways for the rapid development of urban ecosystem. However, the population in urban areas is expected to increase exponentially which may lead to severe mobility problems. Various measures have been implemented by policy makers to mitigate the mobility problems and to provide better transportation facilities to people. Although the efforts are still in infancy stage, they are expected to yield positive results in the long run. In relation to this, the research proposes a mobile application called Easy Ride as an initiative to create an efficient carpooling ecosystem which brings huge advantage to the community in terms of transportation. Connecting people and creating a strong culture of sustainability will be the primary purpose of this application as it serves a path for people to reach out and connect with more travellers. Besides fostering social networks, this application is defined to be cost-effective as it helps the drivers and passengers to share the overall travel expenses. On the other hand, this research describes the agile methodology that has been chosen for the entire development of the application. The system was further tested and validated to determine the efficiency of the overall functionalities and design. The findings indicate that the proposed system has the potential to meet the expectation of the travelers and to enhance their daily lifestyles.

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