DIGITAfrica Inaugural Workshop – First in-person meeting

On 23 April 2025, the 13 partners of DIGITAfrica met in the gorgeous city of Cape Town, South Africa, for the first in-person meeting of the Research Project.

This event, organized by the partner University of Cape Town, marked the beginning of scientific and dissemination activities, with the DIGITAfrica Workshop taking place over the following two days.

At the start, the meeting benefited from the presence and advice of Ms. Patricia Postigo McLaughlin from the European Commission, who highlighted the importance of building an international community together with Ms. Rinske Van Der Berg from the European Research Executive Agency (REA) who illustrated issues related to the management of the project.

The partner representatives had the opportunity to present their current work in progress, and discuss challenges and opportunities within the different Work Packages in order to formalize their short and medium-term roadmap.

The event helped set in motion the coordination and conditions to develop the various blueprints and capacity-building efforts, including stakeholder engagement strategies and plans for dissemination, exploitation, and communication.

Partners also highlighted the importance of finding common ground in addressing the diverse research infrastructure challenges faced by the African partners—Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia—and other countries in the region which could join the initiative in the future.

This project meeting is followed by an open international inaugural workshop (April 24) and a hands-on journey on the main CPT campus (April 25).