Networking ICT researchers

Networking ICT researchers

Improving collaboration between Africa and Europe in ICT requires extensive dialogue between partners to identify research priorities.

No one knows that better than the seven partners involved in the EuroAfrica-ICT initiative, a two-year seventh Framework project (FP7).

The FP7, whose lifespan expires in 2013, is Europe's chief instrument for funding research. The initiative was created to strengthen cooperation in ICT research between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

To achieve the goal, the seven partners organise dialogue forums to bring policymakers, researchers and the business community together to identity priorities for ICT research.

Karine Valin, the managing director of Sigma Orionis, a private company in France, is the coordinator of EuroAfrica-ICT. Valin, a graduate of the International Business School of Fontainebleau, has in recent times been invited to evaluate and review FP7 project proposals.

One such meeting is the eighth Africa-ICT concertation meeting, which was held in Brussels, Belgium last month. More meetings are lined up for the future, which include the fourteenth regional EuroAfrica-ICT FP7 Awareness Workshop, which will take place in Mauritius in November.

The dates of the meeting, which seeks to increase the participation of African researchers in FP7 projects on ICT, are yet to be announced.

Another awareness workshop is lined up for Malawi in 2011.

The project also provides a database of researchers and centres of excellence for African researchers looking for partners for FP7 proposal submissions.

The remaining six institutions involved in the project are the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which is led by British engineer, John Woods; the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie; the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa; the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda; Makerere University in Uganda; and The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS).

For more details about the project, please email karine.valin@sigma-orionis.com

Links
Sigma Orionis
EuroAfrica-ICT
International Business School of Fontainebleau
Eighth Africa-ICT concertation meeting
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Kigali Institute of Science and Technology
Makerere University
The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World