On Thursday, 3rd of March 2022, AfriConEU met digitally with ICT-58 family projects: DIGILOGIC, HUBiquitous, D4D Hub and AEDIB Net. The meeting was organized and moderated by the Coordinator of AfriConEU, INOVA+. The meeting kicked off with a roundtable presentation of the project’s progress and updates. This meeting’s objective was for all participants to share progress and findings of their activities so far, to present what it has been done up to that point, and go over the outcomes. Furthermore, discussions on common challenges and the possibility of joined efforts for reaching a larger audience were discussed.

D4D Hub participated for first time in the ICT Family project meetings. The D4D Hub was launched in December 2020 by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, European Heads of States and D4D Hub partners. The D4D Hub serves as a strategic multi-stakeholder platform that fosters digital cooperation between the Team Europe and its global partners. They have planned several activities for 2022 and invited the rest family projects to be part of them.

Prototipi presented on behalf of DIGILOGIC project giving updates on their progress, mentioning the highlights of the project for 2021. More specifically, DIGILOGIC developed the learning platform which is available for their audience and is preparing a series of podcasts for the upcoming months. Furthermore, their Capacity Building programme, especially for vulnerable target groups, on innovation and entrepreneurship is about to start. Finally, they are also planning a Job fair for this year to match entrepreneurs with jobs available for them along with a bootcamp that will take place in Europe in June 2022.

AEDIB Net participated for the first time in the ICT Family project meetings. It is the first step of a broader approach for the African–European collaboration on digitalization and innovation. The project being launched is under the broader political initiative AEDIB. Initiated by EU Member States (France, Belgium, and Germany) and the European Commission to the EC’s Digital 4 Development process, it is a summit deliverable under the EI-Africa Investment package and flagship in the area of digitalization.

AfriConEU presented the progress of the project for the last months. The first year was devoted on survey interviews, desk research and identifying the local ecosystems in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria. The project is currently transitioning from Phase 2 to Phase 3, which is the Roll-out implementation and Assessment. AfriConEU presented the several events organized during the last months including workshop and webinars that took place online and all the ones that will take place in the upcoming months.

HUBiquitous presented the progress of the project so far including the first year’s achievements. They have two business application box ready involving agriculture and smart cities. They are also working on the booklet addressing the digital innovation ecosystem in Africa, and on May 2022 they will publish an open call for accelerator and one for Talent programme. Furthermore, they have also planned participation in several events for the next few months.

Moving forward, it has been decided that ICT-58 projects will further consolidate their partnership by repeating such meetings, with the next one coming up in June 2022, and co-organizing a final event together at the end of all projects.