SnT Trains ICT Professors for West Africa

West African universities will soon welcome information and communication technology (ICT) experts as professors that are currently trained in Luxembourg. This is due to a partnership agreement between the University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) and the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency (LuxDev) under the mandate of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MFA).
 
The project, called “SnT4Dev”, is a collaboration of SnT and universities from Senegal and Benin with the vision of supporting West Africa in its digital transformation. Its objective is to strengthen human capacities in these countries necessary to promote local economic development in the area of emerging technologies. In particular, “SnT4Dev” offers funding for hiring professors trained at SnT in West African universities. In the long term, the project aims to spread a research culture also in the private sector, to build private sector capacities, and to support the policy of local governments to promote higher education. The funding volume for the project is nearly €10 million over seven years (2024-2030).
 
SnT4Dev builds on the ongoing LuxWays initiative launched in 2020, which supports a selected number of Master students from participating universities in West Africa to join SnT in Luxembourg. At SnT, they aim to earn Ph.D.s in a variety of computer science disciplines, predominantly in cybersecurity. After their studies at SnT, Snt4Dev will support them returning to Africa and bringing their expertise to the countries.
 
Once the returned professors teach, each university is expected to be able to award up to 60 Master’s degrees every two years. In the long term, this will support the regional economy as graduates will be able to contribute their expertise in local companies or create their own start-ups.
 
“West Africa will benefit from our ICT experts who return and teach at universities. There is a large gap in teaching staff in West African universities. For sustainable development, we need to train the academic staff of tomorrow. Thanks to the training of future professors and new faculty positions, students and young researchers can stay in Africa and study computer science there,” said Prof. Tégawendé Bissyande, the principal investigator of SnT4Dev.
 
This approach is also in line with Luxembourg’s general development cooperation strategy, which includes investing in and promoting capacity building through technical and scientific cooperation to support knowledge transfer. Through capacity building, the strategy aims to promote digital transformation and economic growth in Africa.
 
“This project will play an instrumental role in accelerating research and development investments, which will lead to sustainable growth in West Africa. We are happy to contribute to the digital transformation of West Africa by training the trainers of tomorrow,” said Prof. Bissyande.