HUBiquitous is an Innovation Action aiming at creating a joint Africa-Europe Startup & Innovation Ecosystem for long-term collaborations and partnerships. The project has the ambition to increase the technology level and capacity building of 30 local DIHs/TechHubs in 5 African countries. The project proposes highly innovative concepts called Innovation Enablers (i.e. Solution Lab, Application Business Box, and MeetHub online platform). The purpose of these enablers is to provide technical (e.g. IoT, AI, and BigData disruptive technologies) as well as entrepreneurial development skills to DIHs and startups/entrepreneurs. Thanks to these Innovation Enablers, the project will further demonstrate and build the local innovation and ecosystem capacity through 3 programs: (i) Talent program, building digital skills for local talents, (ii) Accelerator program, creating innovative applications and products and (iii) Community program, developing the Africa-Europe start-up and innovation communities. HUBiquitous Innovation Enablers and Programs will, therefore, support and empower the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystems from both continents with the development of a rich and sustainable collaboration between African and European DIHs. HUBiquitous consortium is composed of a partnership of Ten (10) entities, five European and five African, coming from nine different countries. It builds on the existing cooperation and partnership stemming from two previous H2020 ICT International Collaborations with Africa projects (WAZIUP and WAZIHUB). The ultimate target of HUBiquitous is to pave the way for long-term and sustainable innovation for the African DIHs.

WAZIHUB (in Swahili for Open-Hub) is an innovation project for Africa aiming to create an OpenHUB of IoT and Big data cutting-edge and African-grade solutions, co-designed by African people where these solutions can then be adapted to match local service needs. The vision of WAZIHUB is to exploit the huge IoT potential and share best practices for IoT and Cloud Technologies use, through the involvement of innovation communities and stakeholders at local district, regional, national and African level. The project goal is to iterate and extract value from spinning-off value-added IoT innovative services (e.g. monitoring, controlling, data analytics) based on the technologies developed in WAZIUP and FIWARE projects. In order to reach its vision, the project has the following objectives: • make the IoT, Cloud and Big Data technology more accessible through an easily replicated platform as a service using existing technologies and a smart village reference model for testing and validation • simplify the start-up creation process through setting up an accelerator program based on established experience • make the business model more accessible, enabling stakeholders to more easily catalyse around valid, innovative and tested propositions creating innovation ecosystems that also support sustainability WAZIHUB will exploit mature results already tested and ready for deployment, it will push for impact based on these through a set of ambitious and measurable KPIs in terms of creation of startups, IoT Regional Ecosystems, wide reach trough dissemination and Build Capacity to train, support and mentor targeted audience (startups, SMEs and developers). WAZIHUB also plans to expand the reach and use of WAZIUP technology to Southeast and Southern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South-Africa, Mozambique) and at the same time to strengthen the activities and the strategic partnership with West Africa (Senegal, Ghana).

KijaniSpace (GreenSpace in Swahili) is a highly innovative initiative built on the foundation of previous successful AU-EU collaborations and partnerships in the fields of space, IoT, climate and agriculture. The vision of the project is to extend the use of Copernicus Earth observation data for the application of climate-smart agriculture in Africa to regional research and innovation development. To enhance the use of Copernicus data by local African stakeholders, we have proposed several practical but innovative approaches. First of all, Copernicus data should be integrated into the local IoT dataset to enhance the local context, users and market needs of the application. Therefore, the project proposed to develop a Space-IoT Solution Box (called KijaniBox, GreenBox in Swahili ) that integrates the existing platform, tools and dataset for simplified local availability and accessibility. Using the KijaniBox EO and IoT resources, the project will launch two programs, one called Training Program for skills development and creation of minimum viable products and another Innovation Program for SMS innovation experiments. In addition, the project will conduct the pilot demonstration of two agricultural applications (crop farming and fish farming). Finally, the project will engage the various local and international stakeholders and actors with a multi-stakeholder approach to co-create innovation and collaboration environments. KijaniBox is a highly innovation-oriented consortium composed of thirteen (13) companies, six European and seven African partners from seven (7) different countries. The concept of the KijaniSpace project is being piloted in the Great Lake Victoria basin region. The ultimate aim of KijaniSpace is to pave the way for long-term sustainable economic growth and green job creation in Africa and Europe through Copernius and IoT.

The WAZIUP project, namely the Open Innovation Platform for IoT-Big Data in Sub-Saharan Africa is a collaborative research project using cutting edge technology applying IoT and Big Data to improve the working conditions in the rural ecosystem of Sub-Saharan Africa. First, WAZIUP operates by involving farmers and breeders in order to define the platform specifications in focused validation cases. Second, while tackling challenges which are specific to the rural ecosystem, it also engages the flourishing ICT ecosystem in those countries by fostering new tools and good practices, entrepreneurship and start-ups. Aimed at boosting the ICT sector, WAZIUP proposes solutions aiming at long term sustainability. The consortium of WAZIUP involves 7 partners from 4 African countries and partners from 5 EU countries combining business developers, technology experts and local Africa companies operating in agriculture and ICT. The project involves also regional hubs with the aim to promote the results to the widest base in the region.