IST-Africa Workshop focused on ICT-39, eChallenges e2014, 29 - 30 October '14

30 October 2014

IST-Africa organised a week of activities in Northern Ireland from 27 October, which culminated in a workshop focused on ICT-39 and African Research Capacity during the Scientific Programme of eChallenges e2014 on 29 and 30 October.

The Opening Plenary Session of eChallenges focused on ICT-2015 and Horizon 2020, with presentations from Minister Foster (Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Northern Ireland), Annalisa Bogliolo, Programme Coordination, DG CONNECT, Stephen O'Reilly, NCP H2020-ICT Ireland and Simon Grattan, H2020 Manager, ITI, Northern Ireland.

Immediately following the plenary session the IST-Africa Workshop commenced at 14:00, with an Overview of ICT-39 provided by Paul Cunningham to provide a context for the rest of the workshop.

Each of the IST-Africa partners presented national priorities that are most relevant to the focus of ICT-39 and institutions with relevant research capacity in these domains. While there are some thematic areas that are common across most of the IST-Africa partner countries such as eHealth, eAgriculture or Technology-enhanced Learning, there are also additional thematic areas in some countries. The table below provides a summary of thematic areas of highest priority:

Martine Koopman of IICD presented the outputs from an eAgriculture project that IICD is supporting in Kenya and also shared her experiences from supporting eLearning projects in Ghana.

The workshop was well attended with participants from Cedar Foundation (Northern Ireland); CULNAT (Egypt); DG CONNECT, European Commission (Brussels); Fraunhofer Institute SCAI (Germany); IICD - International Institute for Communication and Development (Netherlands); IDC (Italy); Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) (Ireland); National University of Ireland, Galway (Ireland); Queen's University Belfast (Northern Ireland); Research Council Norway; Tigerspike (Malaysia); University College Dublin (Ireland); University La Salle (Peru); University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland / HES-SO Valais (Switzerland); University of Ulster (Northern Ireland); VTT (Finland); ANTIC (Cameroon); Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Ethiopia); ITIDA (Egypt); Ministry of Education Science and Technology (Kenya); Department of Science and Technology (Lesotho); National Commission for Science and Technology (Malawi); National Computer Board (Mauritius); INTIC (Mozambique); National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (Namibia); Department of Science and Technology (South Africa); Ministry of Information Communication Technology (Swaziland); Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur, de la Recherche Scientifique et TIC (Tunisia) and Uganda National Council for Science and Technology.

The session was interactive in nature with a lot of questions being posed to the presenters. Topics focused on challenges related to Infrastructure, outputs from previous eLearning projects and challenges for the future; user interface issues and how to engage with end-user communities. There was a interesting discussion around how it is possible to encourage end-users to pay for mobile credit to access online services related to eAgriculture but in the area of healthcare, citizens expect the Government or the donor community to cover access costs.

As a result of the combined activities across the week, IST-Africa has significantly increased awareness among the European research community of the ICT-39 Call and opportunities for engagement with African research institutions.