Africa-Europe Science and Innovation Summit

The STI Agenda for Africa
The study intends to develop a perspective of the development of Science, Technology and Innovation as a lever for the economy, seen from the point of view of a policy agreed between African countries – Agenda 2063. In particular, the Science, Technology and Innovation development strategy included in Agenda 2063 comprises its first five years.

The aim of this first presentation is to present Agenda 2063 (and STISA-2024) so that international agendas can be aligned with the current one on the African Continent.

Digital technologies are indispensable to achieving sustainable development goals and reducing carbon emissions in many sectors. Yet, computer systems themselves have an immense energy requirement for their countless devices, data centers, applications and global networks. With Covid-19 the shift to digital in living, learning and earning is bringing us closer to the time when digitization will become the climate hazard No. 1. Since digitization has many important benefits, we must prioritize research policy to: design digitization processes that consume less energy; increase algorithmic efficiency and effectiveness so that people and the planet thrive; and make “Sustainability by Design” the new paradigm in digital engineering worldwide.

The main overarching theme of the Horizon Europe Strategy and Africa 2063 Agenda set by the African Union - smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and development – designs the framework for a successful Africa and Europe cooperation under challenging economic, social and environmental conditions.  The common main aims of these Agendas is to develop an economy based on knowledge and innovation, contributing to welfare creation, peace and collective prosperity.   
This common framework has seen the tremendous technological challenge posed by COVID pandemics and has accelerated the usage and societal penetration of Information and Computing technologies (ICT).  As the UN Secretary-General Roadmap for Digital Cooperation emphasizes, digital technologies do help to confront the threat and keep people connected. Supercomputers are essential to analyze thousands of drug compounds to identify candidates for treatments and vaccines. E-commerce platforms prioritized household staples and medical supplies, while videoconferencing platforms enabled education and economic activity to continue.  To this end, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence and enablers like enhanced connectivity and digital infrastructures, 5G roll-out corridors can provide a smart cross-fertilization ground addressing key societal challenges and policies.

Please find the online session link here
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85150107089?pwd=SjMxNGVyVlZWTnFxRlBLdDRnSmtPUT09

Open Education is an important arena post covid as economies and society work to build back better. Initiatives are beginning around the world and this panel brings together efforts including Teach Millions (https://teachmillions.org), 3CL Foundation and the Open HPI platform.

Our speakers will be in the following order:


1300 Welcome - Mei Lin Fung
1305 William Mawalla, AERAP Founder
1320 Thomas Staubitz, Open HPI
1335 Mikkel Frich Ed from Edtech Denmark to Teach Millions
1350 Peter Fagerstrom Teach Millions - Finland, Europe, Africa
1405 Alex Grech, 3CL Foundation
1425 Open Panel Discussion moderated by Mei Lin Fung
1450 Final observations from Participants and Panelists
1500 Close

About Open HPI
The first online course on the Hasso Plattner Institute’s new learning platform was published online in September 2012.
The success convinced others.
In 2013, Software company SAP (openSAP) and, in 2016, the World Health Organization (OpenWHO) partnered with us and adapted the course concept on their own platform instances.
Since 2020, several more plattform instances have been added to accommodate the need of other partners such as the publicly funded research projects AI-Campus and eGov-Campus.
By now, we have passed 11 million enrollments in total. Particluarly, the numbers on the OpenWHO platform have increased significantly in a very short time frame during the beginning of the pandemic.