Building Wakanda

A new platform designed to facilitate conversations relevant to the growth of the African IoT ecosystem, build awareness about the work being done by various stakeholders and foster knowledge sharing and collaboration towards common goals has been launched (https://cchubnigeria.com/open-iot-community/). This will be supported by physical labs across the continent to enable collaborators to build and test their ideas and solutions. The first of these labs will open to community members this year at iHub in Nairobi, Kenya, making it the first open IoT lab in East Africa and the second on the continent.  The community is open to all individuals and organisations that have an interest in IoT technology (innovators, enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, platform operators and organisations in the IoT sector). CcHUB and GSMA Africa are encouraging different stakeholders to get involved by bringing their unique perspective, expertise and resources to this effort. In addition to becoming community members, organisations can partner with CcHUB to strengthen the community and as a result, the work and impact of the different stakeholders. This will be done through different avenues, including but not limited to – innovation challenges and programmes, equipment sponsorship, learning series, university specific outreach and programmes. The GSMA Intelligence Enterprise in Focus 2019 survey reported that the majority of enterprises (52%) around the world view IoT as transformational to their company and wider industry.