The Inter University Council For East Africa

East African Center of Excellence for ICT

East African Center of Excellence for ICT

The political partners, the East African Community (EAC) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) agreed to establish a Center of Excellence in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the EAC.

GIZ will serve as lead implementing agency. The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) is the implementing partner on the East African side and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is supporting the implementation of the academic strand of the project on the German side. This technical cooperation is part of the Regional Economic Integration Programme and under the umbrella of the BMZ’s “Digital Africa Initiative”, an initiative that calls upon the private sector to support strategic partnerships towards a digital Africa. The project runs from April, 2017 to March, 2021.

The Center of Excellence shall contribute to reinforcing the teaching and learning capabilities of East African universities in ICT-related fields. It will also foster linkages between universities, the private and public sector as well as civil society. As a result of the cooperation of these stakeholders, employability, employment and entrepreneurship will be strengthened in East Africa.

The project operates in three fields of intervention:

a)    Establishment of a need-driven, postgraduate master’s programme “Embedded and Mobile Systems in East Africa” (MEMSEA), which is offered as part of an East African-German university partnership (East African Center of Excellence for ICT).

b)    Tailoring courses and services of the universities towards the needs of the private and public sectors in East Africa.

c)    Fostering regional networking in higher education as well as a sector-crossing regional dialogue with the private and public sector, including civil society.

The corner stone will be a state-of-the-art master programme in “Embedded and Mobile Systems” with fundamentals incorporating applied-oriented training modules. The linkage to industry ensures a strong focus on technology transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship. The master programme will be established at a university within the EAC in cooperation with a university in Germany. This partnership will be the result of a tender. The two implementing partners, IUCEA and DAAD, have already launched the call for the university partnership. Deadline for submission of joint proposals is July 31, 2017.

To promote the sustainability of the Center, IUCEA is integrating it to existing initiatives. The dialogue forum Academia-Public-Private-Partnership Forum (APPPF) and ICT dedicated scientific forums will facilitate the sector-crossing dissemination and knowledge transfer in East Africa.

 Contact Persons:

IUCEA: Ben Ruhinda ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), Click here for detailed call

DAAD: Leoni Bremer ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), Click here for detailed call

GIZ-EAC: Bernd Multhaup ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ); http://eacgermany.org/

Funded by:	Implemented by:	In cooperation with: