EuroAfrica-ICT.org project website | Euro-African Cooperation on ICT Research
Home > ICT Research priorities > Success stories
LinkedIn Twitter Blog Entries
 

Success stories

The purpose of the 6DEPLOY project is to support the deployment of IPv6 in: 1/. e-Infrastructure environments; 2/. FP7 projects; 3/. Developing countries (Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe); 4/. Industrial environments in Europe. Partners offer basic training to organisations in Europe and developing countries, and support real IPv6 deployments. Case studies of installations will be used to gain valuable practical experience which will help the 6DEPLOY team to become the centre of European expertise regarding IPv6 deployment. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 1 000 000 EUR
African Partner(s): African Network Information Center (AfriNIC), Mauritius

Many Developing Countries in Africa are exposed to serious environmental disaster risks. However their possibility of access to information and communication technology (ICT) for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) is often lacking. The AÏDA project aims at sharing knowledge about affordable ICT solutions in support of DRM in Africa. AÏDA will make a snapshot of the disaster situation in Africa with an emphasis on the used ICT solutions. On a continental scale, AÏDA will examine the Early Warning Information Services and the Disaster Management Dissemination Platforms. Drilling down to a National scale, 4 countries has been selected which often are confronted with different sorts of Natural hazards and which have well developed National Disaster Action Plans to cope with these hazards. It is very likely that some deployed ICT solutions which are used for the monitoring, prediction, warning or post-hazard relief of a certain disaster in Africa, can be easily re-used for managing other disasters. The scope is to start a cross-fertilization process of knowledge and best practices between all disaster stakeholders in Africa. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 869 000 EUR
African Partner(s): Federal University of Technology, Nigeria/Ardhi University, Tanzania/Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa/Institut d’Economie Rurale, Mali

The BEANISH initiative, which was formally a WITFOR (World Information Technology Forum) project, proposed by EU-African partners and IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) has built upon an existing global R&D network called HISP (Health Information Systems Program). This initiative has involved various institutional actors (governments, universities, private sector and NGOs) to strengthen and extend an existing ‘Europe-Africa’ collaborative network to support the application and sharing of ICT application development so as to support cooperation, learning and innovation in mutually beneficial ways. The project focus was on organization of the WITFOR conference; strengthening of the HISP network by conducting case studies and sharing of best practices; establishing capacity building to enable sharing open source software development; supporting e-training.

Total EC Funding: 800 000 EUR
African Partner(s): Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology, Botswana/University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania/Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique/Medical College, Malawi/University of the Western Cape, South Africa/Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

BELIEF-II, building on achievements and momentum created by BELIEF (2005-2007), aims to coordinate effective communication, results, networking and knowledge flow between EU e-Infrastructure projects and their users, promoting their development and exploitation globally. BELIEF-II seeks to: 1/. Ensure Europe’s diverse e-Infrastructure projects evolvement in synergy with one another to ensure common directions and efficient interaction; 2/. Reinforce the relevance of Europe’s e-Infrastructures worldwide sustaining successful development and exploitation; 3/. Network a wide range of stakeholders through a coordinated mechanism to support a vibrant e-Infrastructure community; 4/. Synchronise e-Infrastructures priorities through easy to read e-Infrastructure communication products; 5/. Provide a unique communication platform for projects to manage their content, communicate activities to users and the public to learn more about e-Infrastructures. Major results of BELIEF-II are: 2 e-Concertation meetings with Reports, 2 European Brainstorming events, 2 editions of e-Infrastructures guide, 1 DVD, 2 EC e-Infrastructure dissemination publications, 5 Research Infrastructures News publications, 3 International Symposia. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 900 000 EUR
African Partner(s): Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

The CHAIN project aims to coordinate and leverage the efforts made over the past 6 years to extend the European e‐Infrastructure (and particularly Grid) operational and organisational principles to a number of regions in the world. CHAIN uses their results with a vision of a harmonised and optimised interaction model for e‐Infrastructure and specifically Grid interfaces between Europe and the rest of the world. The project will elaborate a strategy and define the instruments in order to ensure coordination and interoperation of the European Grid Infrastructure with those emerging in other regions of the world (Asia, Mediterranean, Latin America and Sub‐Saharan Africa). The CHAIN consortium, consisting of leading organisations in all the regions addressed by the project, will ensure global coverage, European leadership, and most efficient leveraging of results with respect to preceding regional initiatives. CHAIN is a project co‐funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme – Infrastructures. Website/Contact

Total EC funding: 1.100.000 EUR
African partner(s): UbuntuNet Alliance

The DigitalWorld Forum is an attempt to gather the foremost experts in the field of inclusive and accessible ICT and Developing Countries in a context of Sustainable Development and to create a Forum where the different initiatives and actors would be able to network and to exchange best practices and success stories in order to deliver development-related ICT research exploitation and cooperation roadmaps. The premier goal was to create synergy between all stakeholders in order to be able to build bottom-up credible and sound “cooperation roadmaps” in the field of ICT research, thus identifying and connecting initiatives at the global level, the regional level and the local level, identifying common factors and distinctive traits. The real innovation and challenge that is now appearing on the horizon is the new low-cost dimension. The consortium partners bring together a plethora of experience and practical knowledge in the fields of the latest low-cost initiatives for Accessible ICT and access to the leading institutions.

Total EC Funding: 701 235 EUR
African Partner(s): Onevillage Foundation, Ghana/Kusamotu & Kusamotu, Nigeria/Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

The project had the strategic objective to promote European e-Infrastructures developments and exploitation in Africa and to develop stronger cooperation links between Europe and Africa thanks to, among other things, the organisation of the “2010 Euro-Africa e-Infrastructures Conference” – a very first exciting conference filled with discussions and debates, networking opportunities and knowledge-sharing among key stakeholders in the field and policymakers coming from all over Europe and Africa. As an International e-Infrastructures project, eI-Africa also aimed at reinforcing the relevance of Europe’s e-Infrastructures in Africa, at raising awareness on e-Infrastructures in Africa, and at ensuring that European e-Infrastructures related projects could get the highest visibility on the African continent. The project ended in March 2011. Website / Contact / Project Outputs

The “Exchange Programme to advanced e-Infrastructure Know-How” (EPIKH) is an FP7 EU-funded project (DG Research) under the People Programme-Marie Curie International Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES), a new implementation modality aiming at strengthening research partnerships through staff exchanges and networking activities between European research organisations and organisations from countries with which the Community has an S&T agreement or are in the process of negotiating one, and countries covered by the European Neighbourhood policy. The strategic objectives of the EPIKH project are to: 1/. reinforce the impact of e-Infrastructures in scientific research defining and delivering stimulating programme of thematic educational events, including Grid Schools and High Performance Computing courses; 2/. broaden the engagement in e-Science activities and collaborations both geographically and across disciplines. These ambitious goals translate into the following specific actions: 1/. spreading the knowledge about the “Grid Paradigm” to all potential users: both system administrators and application developers through an extensive training programme; 2/. easing the access of the trained people to the e-Infrastructures existing in the areas of action of the project; 3/. fostering the establishment of scientific collaborations among the countries and continents involved in the project. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 1 188 000 EUR
African Partner(s): The Electronics Research institute (ERI), Egypt / Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa / Centre de Recherche sur l’Information Scientifique et Tecnique (CERIST), Algeria / Unité de Recherche en Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication de l’Université de Tunis (UTIC), Tunisia / Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST), Morocco / University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

EPOCH has combined expertise and resources of technologists, heritage administrators, heritage professionals and communication experts concerned with the effective and sustainable application of digital technology to archaeological research and cultural heritage presentation at museums, monuments, and historic sites. EPOCH has involved a large consortium of leading institutions from Europe and other parts of the world and promoted interdisciplinary integration by initiating and supporting a wide range of activities to the benefit of network members and the wider community, including: 1/. Undertaking integrating activities to create an integrated information base on the current and potential use of ICT in cultural heritage, the obstacles to progress in terms of both the technical research terms and the understanding of the socio-economic and business issues and to enhance use of existing resources, 2/. Performing research to complete the toolkit for creating cultural heritage applications and create an integrated infrastructure, 3/. Spreading Excellence through on-line services and resources, dissemination activities, education, training and staff mobility.

Total EC Funding: 7 880 000 EUR
African Partner(s): University of Cape Town, South Africa

EUMEDGRID-Support aims at reinforcing the relevance of European e-Infrastructures in the Mediterranean and Middle-east regions. The project builds on the results obtained by EUMEDCONNECT/ EUMEDCONNECT2 and the preceding project EUMEDGRID, which successfully deployed a research and education network and a pilot Grid infrastructure, respectively, presently covering almost all the Mediterranean Area. An agreement has been signed among the EUMEDGRID partners to keep open, to the best of their capabilities, the existing Infrastructure and EUMEDGRID-Support wants, not only to consolidate and expand it, but also to make a step forward towards its sustainability. The overarching objective of EUMEDGRID-Support is to retain the European and Mediterranean country dialogue achieved in the past as well as to increase stakeholders and community awareness on the fundamental importance of e-Infrastructures in the Mediterranean and on their sustainability. The project uses the consolidated schema of a two-fold approach: A bottom-up, raising the awareness of researchers, students and technical personnel, which exploits the usage of e-Infrastructures in their work and appreciate their value, and a top-down approach at the high policy-level highlighting the benefits and justifying the necessity of e-Infrastructures to influential stakeholders in order to push for a long term stability and sustainability of such e-Infrastructures. Website/Contact

Total EC funding: 740000 EUR
African partner(s): Egyptian University Network (Egypt), Centre de Calcul El Khawarezmi (Tunisia), Centre de Recherche sur l’Information Scientifique et Technique (Algeria), Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (Morocco).

The Global RFID Interoperability Forum for Standards (GRIFS) is a Support Action Project funded by the European Commission with the aim to improve collaboration and thereby to maximise the global interoperability of RFID standards. It has run over two years and was coordinated by GS1, ETSI and CEN. The GRIFS project has initiated a forum that continues to work constructively and grow after the end of the project through a Memorandum of Understanding between key global standard organisations active in RFID. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 450 000 EUR
African Partner(s): GS1 South Africa, South Africa

FLOSS (Free / Libre / Open Source Software) is arguably one of the best examples of open, collaborative, internationally distributed production and development. FLOSS provides numerous benefits for developing countries, such as low cost, adaptability, and a free-of-charge high quality training environment, as shown by the FP6 FLOSSWORLD study. The FLOSSInclude project aims to strengthen Europe’s participation in international research in FLOSS and open standards, by studying what is needed to increase the deployment, development and societal impact of FLOSS in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The project will result in a sound understanding of the FLOSS-related needs of the target regions. It will federate local and regional development initiatives with the support of cooperation with current EU research. It will also provide a roadmap for future EU research cooperation in this area.

Total EC Funding: 703 463 EUR
African Partner(s): Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITIKACE), Ghana/University of the Western Cape, South Africa

The SIMBA project intended to transform road transport through worldwide cooperation. It brought together European Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Infrastructure and vehicle maker practitioners and technology providers with their counterparts in China, India, Brazil and South Africa in order to establish a cooperation network that discussed how to increase road safety, mobility and transport efficiency in these countries through the exchange of technological know-how and closer cooperation. Activities started in the first SIMBA project will be continued and extended with the SIMBA II project. Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 1 100 000 EUR
African Partner(s): Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

SIMBA II is an EU/FP7 project funded by the European Commission (DG Research), aiming at increasing road transport research cooperation between Europe and the emerging markets of Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa building on the network established in the first SIMBA project, by bringing together key stakeholders in the fields of the automotive industry, ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) and infrastructure. Building on the achievements of the first SIMBA project, the SIMBA II project aimed at: 1/. increasing R&D cooperation with the involved regions; 2/. further exploring the road transport problems and priorities established in the first SIMBA project; 3/. expanding the cooperation network established in the first SIMBA project; 4/. increasing the visibility of European industry and supporting the industry to respond to International Co-operation Partner Countries’ business opportunities; 5/. supporting consortia of experts from the research sector, public authorities and industry; 6/. exchanging and supporting sustainable urban transport planning with practitioners and experts in order to reinforce sustainable decisions on investments and implement sound policy-led initiatives; 7/. supporting studies and discussions on how to rapidly adopt and transfer technologies and research results. The major transport policy issues in South Africa are reversing road infrastructure deterioration, improving mobility for all and road safety. The government has put in place many innovative and far-reaching policies to address mobility, safety and infrastructure management. It also aims to introduce intelligent transport systems (ITS) to deal with the increasing congestion on South Africa’s urban roads and drastically improve public transport. In recent years South Africa has been looking towards Europe for urban traffic solutions and SIMBA has worked at stimulating this cooperation. Website /Contact

Total EC Funding: 499 925 EUR
African Partner(s): Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

S-PULSE, namely Shrink-Path of Ultra-Low Power Superconducting Electronics, is a project that takes place in the frame of FLUXONICS. The overall goal of S-PULSE is to prepare Superconductor Electronics (SE) technologies for the technology generation beyond the CMOS scaling limits (“beyond CMOS”). S-PULSE supports joint efforts of European academic and industrial groups in the field of superconducting technologies. The support action goals are: 1/. to strengthen the vital link between research and development on the one hand and the industrial view on the other hand; 2/. to bring together industrial expectations and visionary extrapolation with the current status of technology; 3/. to improve the image of SE and chances of pushing SE technologies out of their niche as a successful but alien technique; 4/. to strengthen the exchange of knowledge and ideas, take charge of education, and win public interest. The challenge in SE is to achieve superconducting electronic circuit performance beyond the possibilities of semiconductor circuit technologies, and to make SE technologies ready to benefit to other technologies in the world markets. This support action, funded by the 7th framework programme of the European Commission on Research, Technological Development and Demonstration for the 2008-2010 period, is focused to prepare a Technology Roadmap and a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) to enable the transition from the present scientific oriented network for SE towards an industrially guided European Technology Platform (ETP). Website/Contact

Total EC Funding: 550 000 EUR
African Partner(s): Stellenbosch University, South Africa

The STADIUM project (Smart Transport Applications Designed for large events with Impacts on Urban Mobility) is an FP7 EU-funded project (DG Research) aiming at providing local authorities responsible for transport in candidate cities to host large events with a set of guidelines and specific tools to improve the performance of transports services and systems. The project demonstrates Intelligent Transport System (ITS) applications (using ICTs) at three major events: the South Africa World Cup (2010), the India Commonwealth Games (2010) and the London Olympics (2012). The main objectives of the STADIUM South African demonstration are to show the use of the DRT application during the 2010 South Africa World Cup and to demonstrate that the DRT application can improve the day-to-day operations of a public transport service offered by minibus taxis. Cape Town was chosen as demonstration site by the South African partners of the project. Due to the relevance of the minivan transport sector in the region, the demonstrator will aim to improve its performances through the development of an ITS application supporting a demand-responsive transport service (DRT). The DRT platform will be integrated with a system able to provide information for taxis and buses as well as passengers and will be open to future integration, e.g. with ticketing, multi modal systems, terminal management etc. This demonstration will open a wide range of possibilities to improve the local transport system providing an innovative technological control centre. Website / Contact

Total EC funding: 3 600 000 EUR
African partner(s): Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa / MultiMedia InnoVation, South Africa / Saha, South Africa

The VOICES project is an European Project funded under the 7th framework programme, started on January 1, 2011 and running for a period of 30 months. The consortium driving the project has 12 partners from France, Netherland, Switzerland, Italy, Senegal, South Africa, Portugal and Mali. The focus of VOICES is the investigation of voice-based services in a rural african context. The objectives are to: Improve voice-based access to content and mobile ICT services through the development of a free and open source toolbox for local developers. Integrate local community radios and ICT to leverage the quality and the volume of radio content broadcast and sharing. Better support and integrate local languages in voice-based services through the development of appropriate speech elements (text-to-speech and Speech recognition) for underresourced language such as Wolof. Investigate self-sustainability of voice-based services through the identification and development of appropriate business models in collaboration with local communities. Enhance uptake of this new channel for ICT services through community building activities, development of specific capacity building initiatives (mobile training lab) in Senegal, and involvement of local ICT developers. Website/Contacts

Total EC funding: 2.05 million EUR
African partner(s): Sahel Eco (Mali), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa), Ecole Superieure Multinationale des Telecommunications (Senegal), North West University (South Africa)

Leave a comment