Equipping Graduates in Africa with skills for a new technological era

An Overview

In November 2022, InnoGlobal embarked on a unique partnership with The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, (SARAO), to deliver a pilot project, DigiSkills Africa, with the aim to transform the manufacturing sector in South Africa and on the African continent. The purpose of this project was to enhance learners’ knowledge, skills and competencies associated with the concepts of digital transformation and the evolution of life science manufacturing from a traditional reactive process to the emergence of Industry 4.0.

We developed and executed the Digital transformation programme as an adaptation of our MSc in Digital Transformation for Life Sciences offered through Innopharma Education. Adapted to fit a local environment in any region on the African continent through partnerships with industry and academic institutions, the programme, using our adaptive learning management system, was broken into three components, eLearning & Live lecturing, an in-person workshop followed by live lecturing and SmartLabs. Funding for the in-person workshop was provided by the UK Newton Fund through the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) Big Data Project. Other partners, The Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DATA) Big Data project, SARAOand the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) led the local hosting and administration of the course. As a first on the African continent, this unique partnership offered a pathway that can transform the manufacturing sector in South Africa and on the African Continent. Its objective was to enhance the skills of graduates to meet the skills needs for manufacturing environments for Africa’s transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, preparing graduates for jobs of the future. It will contribute to the creation of technical expertise and skills capacity for the continent to fully transition to a digitised era.

Impact of the Initiative - from Learners and Industry

It can be seen from the data below that this initiative experienced strong participation from across the continent and reached the desired gender, age and nationality blend. Following the completion of a highly successful inaugural initiative in capacity building for African graduates through digital up-skilling, Innoglobal intends to replicate it between October 2023 and March 2024 in Capetown, South Africa.

The six-month blended learning programme will focus on skills supporting Africa’s digital and green transition and building capacity for medicine manufacturing on the continent, enabling the participants to successfully transition into sought-after roles within the critical sectors of digital, green and medicine manufacturing. It is intended that this initiative will act as a springboard to scaling such strategic initiatives across the African continent in support of capacity building for the critical themes of digitalisation, sustainability and medicine manufacturing.

DR DANIELA ANGIONE

Head of Funding & Innovation

Daniela is responsible for research and grant applications in Innoglobal since she joined the company in 2021. As an experienced innovation strategist and evaluator, she leads the analysis of opportunities for research funding and collaborations at a National, European and Global level, and she is in charge of grant writing and management. Her extensive experience as a Principal Lead of research and commercialisation research projects is witnessed by the several awards won as an individual recipient of National and International Research Grants, and by the private investment of a Multinational Company for the commercialisation of the technological innovation she conceived and developed. Daniela has been recently elected Chair of the Ambassador to the Member States Group for the Process4Planet (P4P) European Partnership.