26 October 2015
mHealth4Afrika was showcased during a dedicated Networking session focused on Africa-EU Research Cooperation organised by the IST-Africa Initiative during ICT 2015 in Lisbon on 21 October 2015. This Networking session was focused on sharing results of African - European Cooperation under FP7 and H2020 ICT-39-2015, raising awareness of current ICT-related national priorities in African Member States and African Research Capacity and providing an opportunity for researchers to gain insight into opportunities under H2020 ICT-39-2017.
Paul Cunningham (IST-Africa Coordinator/ IIMC, Ireland) provided an overview of African research priorities and research capacity sharing results from IST-Africa. Download presentation
Morten Moller (Programme Coordination, DG CONNECT, European Commission) provided insights into the importance of International Cooperation in Horizon 2020. He presented opportunities for cooperation between Africa and Europe under the new Work Programme (2016 - 2017), which includes ICT-39-2016 (Support Action) and ICT-39-2017 (Innovation Actions). Morten provided insights into the results from the ICT-39-2015 Call highlighting the relevance of the proposals received. Out of the 45 proposals submitted, four proposals were selected for funding focused on Health, Land tenure and IoT. Download presentation
Miriam Cunningham, (mHealth4Afrika Coordinator / IIMC, Ireland) provided insights into the co-design process undertaken to prepare the mHealth4Afrika Research and Innovation project. Bearing in mind the importance to ensure alignment with national and regional policies and priorities, the mHealth4Afrika Consortium considered a range of health-related challenges where ICT could assist and identified supporting quality community-based maternal and newborn healthcare delivery at clinic level to be a priority in all four intervention countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa). It was important to identify partners with multi-disciplinary complementary expertise (technical and health) who had existing relationships with the Ministry of Health and healthcare clinics. During the co-design process, technical, human resource and training challenges were identified to have a clear understanding of existing practical constraints.
mHealth4Afrika will research and evaluate the potential impact of co-designing an open source, multilingual mHealth platform to support quality community-based maternal and Newborn healthcare delivery at clinic level, based on end-user requirements in Southern Africa (Malawi, South Africa), East Africa (Kenya) & Horn of Africa (Ethiopia). The consortium brings together multidisciplinary expertise from seven countries: Ireland (IIMC), Ethiopia (University of Gondar), Kenya (@iLabAfrica, Strathmore University), Malawi (Chancellor College, University of Malawi), Norway (Dept of Informatics, University of Oslo), South Africa (Centre for Community Technologies, NMMU) and UK (Computer Science Research Institute, University of Ulster). Cross border collaboration will assist in increasing the research capacity within each participating country through knowledge exchange and skills transfer. Miriam highlighted that undertaking research and innovation activities across different regions of Africa provides a unique opportunity to collect a critical mass of comparative data related to end-user requirements and pilot evaluation, to assist in analysing similarities and differences in participating countries. Download presentation
All of the presentations were very well received, with a lot of interest in the African research capacity presented by IST-Africa, activities to be undertaken by mHealth4Afrika and opportunities under ICT-39-2017.
The session was very well attended (more than 55 participants) with all chairs occupied and people standing at the back and in the central corridor. The participants represented 20 countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK) including NCPs from Egypt and South Africa. There was a lot of questions and follow up after the session.