STEM-education is very relevant for East-African countries, where producing added value is a way of improving life standard in these developing countries. Moreover there is a high demand for technicians from investors, NGOs and the emerging mid-class in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, supported by legislative attempts to increase local employment. To cope with this demand, there is a need for skilled people, trained in relevant engineering trades, but they are hard to find, due to the strong theoretical approach in universities instead of practice-oriented competence-based teaching. This is directly related to the lack of modern curricula in engineering and industry-grade equipment. The ACTEA project aims to fulfil the specific needs in engineering, provide better skills matching, deliver course material in 2 specializations, Computer Aided Manufacturing Technology and Electrical Engineering & Automation and, establish technologic laboratories, with virtual and remote accessibility, establish a learning tools, give academic staff additional training on technology and in developing technologic course material according to EU standards. The results will be disseminated and exploited with train-the-trainer sessions, Master Classes and with training of a pilot group of internal and external stakeholders. Good practices and results will be made public through e-resources, radio and local media. The Business Integration Bureau favors cooperation with local business, for trainings, employing students or as client for end-products. All is done according to a well-defined quality assurance scheme. The impact on the short term is increased technologic and pedagogic knowledge, increased operational capacity, increase in engineering students, and a better cooperation with local industry. On the long term, the project aims at an increase in employability, in added value produced locally, sustained life-ling-learning and long-term high-quality knowledge gain in technology.

The technological revolution is proceeding fast, every day we see new interesting applications. The communication between humans, machines and their constant communication through the Internet is becoming increasingly interconnected. Two mayor tendencies which are changing the world around us are Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). While IoT produces sensor data, AI will help interpret this data, in a comprehensible way and to make semi-automated decisions for controlling certain physical processes. If we take a look at the world’s investment and strategic plans on AI, governments are putting a lot of effort in the development of AI systems, to find relevant applications and to get their knowledge up to an excellent level, not to be left behind. The increased competitiveness of countries worldwide is becoming apparent for those who do invest in creating linkages between government, business, and academia in this field.This is equally important for Africa. There are a number of initiatives in African countries, but the real challenge is to get the African biggest companies adopting AI for their business processes. This calls for the development of an AI ecosystem that will lower their development costs, help create AI applications tailored to local needs, and reduce their dependence on foreign companies. In addition, the African AI ecosystem could position itself as an attractive partner for global digital giants keen to enter the African market. The aim of the HUMAIN project is to connect diverse specializations together in one consistent curriculum, tailored to the East-African situation and societal problems, to come to a hybrid engineer who has in-depth knowledge in all different aspects and can connect these parts together to a useful and commercially viable system. At the same time we focus on real-life applications of AI, operational deployment and business cases, to break away from the theory and give way to practical applications.