9 Million rand in funding available from Safipa

Safipa (South Africa – Finland Knowledge Partnership on ICT) have launched a fund to the value of 9 Million rands and 3 million Euro’s. SAFIPA is a partnership programme between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for Finland (MFA) and South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) which operates within the Meraka Institute of the CSIR.

This 3 year programme that is Jointly funded by the MFA and DST are specifically for the area of  ICT (Information and communications technology) with a paricular focus on how they can assist the educational and health sectors as well as other industries.

South Africa’s ICT community, Academia, NGO’s (Non Govermental Organisations), SME’s (Small to medium enterprises) and the educational community are all invited to submit proposals for acceptance into the programme. In particular social entrepreneurs are invited to submit proposals that could assist rural communities and and under serviced urban communities. Some of the challenges that could be addressed (but not limited to) as part of the proposal would be Lack of connectivity, Increasing comuter litracy, access to self-learning and increasing awareness.

A steering committee has been set up, which will meet quarterly to decide on projects. As part of its activities, SAFIPA plans to host
annual international conferences over the next three years,  together with relevant programme stakeholders, such as universities, companies and communities. Each annual conference will assess progress on a year-on year-basis and will feed into a learning and knowledge system.

Visit the Safipa website for more details and the first call for proposals close on the 24th of October.

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