Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS19.9.2017
The last visit in the scope of the initiative Sustainable Village for Development was in Mozambique. The focus of this trip was to promote the digital inclusion in the country, having Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS presented a paper related to this subject in the 8th Luso-Mozambican Engineering Congress.
Digital divide is still part of the lives of many citizens, especially in developing countries. The initiative Sustainable Village for Development (SV4D) aims to improve the quality of life of citizens in remote regions, through access to ICT infrastructures, connectivity and services, usually unavailable or accessible only in urban centres. With the implementation of the SV4D architecture, the communication infrastructure can now meet the needs of underserved communities, offering ICT solutions to the different aforementioned services (e.g. health, education, economy, commerce, freedom, environment, governance, security, etc.).
The paper ‘Sustainable Villages for Development: Promoting Digital Inclusion’ presented in the 8th Luso-Mozambican Engineering Congress, explains how the SV4D can be deployed, alongside with the benefits for the local population quality of life. The Congress occurred between 4th and 8th of September, in Maputo.
The Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS’ team took the opportunity to meet with researchers from the Informatics Centre of the Eduardo Mondlane University, in order to discuss the project Deus ex Machina (DeM).
Mozambique was the last country visited this summer in the context of the initiative SV4D, after Cabo Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.