One of the RLABS team, Brent Williams, was invited to attend and do a presentation at the, 3rd Euro-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT Research. This Forum was organised as a side event to the 3rd Africa-EU Summit. An event designed for anyone with an interest in Euro – Africa collaborative research on ICT. This event was hosted at the Scandic Marina Congress Centre in Helsinki, Finland from the 7-10 December 2010.
There were so many delegates from all over Africa and Europe coming to present and share how they are currently using ICT. There were various talks like: “Technology Enhanced Learning” to “Advanced Technology to Improve Health”, “Services and digital content infrastructures” etc. The topic that RLABS was asked to speak about was:” Local Innovation and Technology Transfer” which is exactly what we are doing at RLABS.
Some of the vital points in the RLABS presentation were community development, the importance of developing champions to drive future projects, how one should always have a strong message (RLABS message is HOPE),capacity building, to use what you have at hand now, dare to be different and community innovation. One of the key aspects and what makes RLABS successful is that we are willing to share and transfer what we have learnt with our local community.
ICT is so widely used and in so many different areas. So why not use it to reconstruct and empower our communities? With RLABS moving into a new space soon there will be lots more room to transfer this awesome knowledge that we have gathered.
