The collaboration is aimed at enhancing digital skills of an initial target group of senior officials from ministries and regulatory authorities, in charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by availing of the Ericsson Educate program.

The program is expected to later extend to the youth, students, and professionals, particularly educators.

With SADA being an initiative of the Smart Africa Alliance, an alliance spanning 32 African countries that aims to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development in Africa, the collaboration will have a far-reaching impact across the continent. It will equip the public administrations of each member state with the latest information to enhance their knowledge and competencies around emerging digital technologies which will support them in establishing impactful digital skill development roadmaps and strategies.

The Ericsson Educate program has especially been curated and customized to support the ongoing digital skills development of SADA’s target audience. With rich content on 21st-century technologies such as 5G networks, Internet of Things (IoT), Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML), the Ericsson Educate program will provide in addition to the digital skills portal developed by Ericsson, various series of live online workshops led by technology experts from Ericsson. The objective of the Ericsson Educate program is to empower the continent’s policymakers to develop harmonized digital transformation frameworks that will ensure a prosperous future for Africa in the digital age.

Lacina Koné, the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of Smart Africa commented: “We are committed to bridging digital skill gaps across Africa to ensure the inclusive digital development of the continent. We are confident that the Ericsson Educate program will support us in accelerating our mission and nurturing an ecosystem of ICT specialized training that will increase digital proficiency across our member states. Through the program, we look forward to empowering policy and decision-makers with adequate knowledge of the latest digital technologies to make informed decisions that propel the continent in the digital era.”

Erik Ekudden, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, and Head of Strategy at Ericsson says, “We strongly believe that mobile technologies have the potential to level the global playing field and contribute to the long-term and sustainable economic development of Africa. Collaborating with SADA to enhance the digital competencies of policy and decision makers in each member state, we aspire to empower the development of a well-planned ICT policy and regulatory environment that increases Africa’s competitiveness in the global economy.”

Ericsson has been a private sector member of the Smart Africa Alliance since 2016, actively contributing to key projects aimed at the digital development of the continent. Through this latest collaboration with SADA, Ericsson reaffirms its commitment to Africa’s digital inclusion and adoption to drive digital transformation and education across the continent.

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The agreement is contained within a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed today between the Smart Africa Alliance and the Ghana’s Ministry Communications and Digitalisation.

The launch in Ghana follows the roll out of national digital academies of SADA that took place in the Republic of Congo in February and in Rwanda in March.

As a pan-African dynamic learning ecosystem, SADA aims to improve digital skills qualifications, employability, and meet the emerging talent needs of African citizens.

The national digital academy will support the uniquely identified digital skills priority needs at the national level.

Furthermore, such national digital academies will soon be rolled out in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Prior to this official launch, SADA implemented in April a federated cloud proof of value workshop in Accra where over 100 people from the public and private sector were trained.

This workshop aimed to strengthen the countries’ Data Centers and Cloud Services ecosystem with the collaboration of our private sector partners, HPE and Intel.

Additionally, this week, SADA held two other peer learning workshops; one on Digital Payment and the other on Artificial Intelligence, during which more than 60 experts gathered to gain knowledge and exchange best practices on digital payment ecosystem, and in developing AI Frameworks in Ghana.

As part of the next steps, Smart Africa and the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation will continue to collaborate with the key stakeholders to successfully execute the defined priority initiatives under the SADA Ghana framework.

These initiatives range from executive education in specialized topics to training of teachers and training of trainers in advanced computing. They will be implemented in collaboration with our development partners and private partners such as GIZ, World Bank, ITU, HPE, A4AI and more.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Lacina Koné, the Director General and CEO of Smart Africa said: “Ghana is one of the most active countries of the Smart Africa alliance and has been instrumental in advancing digital skills of its citizens. We are pleased to contribute positively to the nation capacity building through the launch of SADA in Ghana.”

“At the heart of the digital transformation lies the need to bridge the digital skills gap of our continent’s future and present workforce. I would like to thank all our partners and the Republic of Ghana for officially onboarding the SADA journey” he added.

Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalisation who graced the launch thanked Smart Africa and said “Today marks a proud moment for the people of Ghana and Africa at large in the area of digital skills and empowering African citizens in taking advantage of the digital transformation”

Since its start of operation in August 2020, focusing on the Capacity Building for Decision Makers (CBDM) module, SADA has trained over 2,000 policy and decision-makers across 26 countries in trending digital transformation topics including Artificial Intelligence Use Cases, 5G Connectivity, Data Protection & Privacy, Rural Broadband Policies, Security Technologies, Regulatory and Innovative Sandboxing Environments, Data Centers and Cloud, Digital Identity for Underserved, ePayment, etc.

The objective is to reach over 22,000 trained beneficiaries by 2023, supported by the SADA In-country implementation wave.

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Ericsson and Smart Africa Digital Academy (Sada) have announced the digital upskilling of 100 policy makers and regulators across 19 African countries on the topics of emerging technologies to promote and boost digital transformation across Africa through education and capacity building.

Signed in September 2022, the collaboration aims at enhancing digital skills of a target group of senior officials from ministries and regulatory authorities, in charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by providing access to Ericsson’s global skills program – Ericsson Educate.

In addition to access to self-learning digital skills content, the Ericsson Educate program helped deliver a series of webinars led by 27 Subject Matter Experts from Ericsson. The collaboration ran from November 2022 to January 2023.

The specially curated virtual workshops covered topics related to emerging technologies part of the Fourth Industry Revolution (4IR) such as 5G networks, Internet of Things (IoT), Network Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML).

Thelma Quaye, Director of Infrastructure, Skills and Empowerment at Smart Africa highlighted:” The Fourth Industrial Revolution is fueled by innovation and knowledge. Technology offers a great opportunity for Africa to embrace new opportunities to boost digital transformation and contribute to the global economy. We are glad to see our participants benefitting greatly from our collaboration with Ericsson, and we are looking forward to witnessing the positive advancements that will be brought about.”

Fida Kibbi, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Communications and Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson Middle East and Africa says: “We are happy to see the fruitful outcome of our collaboration with Smart Africa Digital Academy within such a short time period. Equipped with a deeper understanding on how existing and emerging technologies work and how these can be best used, the policy makers and regulators can enable the digital transformation of the continent by creating the best conditions for citizens, consumers, and businesses.”

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