Presentation of the Technipedia initiative in Barcelona
Her Royal Highness the Infanta Cristina, Jaime Lanaspa, managing director of "la Caixa" Foundation, Francesc Xavier Grau, president of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), Josep Maria Vilalta, executive secretary of the ACUP and Guy Tsala, vice President for Research and Cooperation of the University of Yaounde I, presented the Tecnhipedia initiative at CaixaForum-Barcelona on Wednesday, July 18.
The virtual platform Technipedia www.technipedia.com, has been developed by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Africa Program, driven by the Interuniversity Consortium of University Management (CIGU) formed by the public universities of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) and five universities in sub-Saharan Africa. The development of the platform Technipedia has been led from the African side, by the University of Yaounde I, and from the Catalan side, by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), the Universitat de Lleida (UdL) and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). The project has been supported by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID), “la Caixa” Foundation and the Universitat de Lleida (UdL).
Technipedia is a virtual platform that aims at strengthing the economy of African countries by improving knowledge transfer between universities and the economic sector, encouraging entrepreneurship among young Africans and innovation. The platform will offer technological and economic information, accompanied by examples of good practices to help strengthen the technological culture, to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and encourage the creation of innovative companies. In addition, the platform will facilitate the exchange of information among entrepreneurs in order to connect them. The platform will also contribute directly to the densification of the network of small and medium companies and serve as background information for anyone whose creative potential can be used to develop his own project using facts and analysis, among others.
The Interuniversity Consortium of University Management (CIGU) that promotes Technipedia was created in the framework of the the University Cooperation Program with Africa. The Program carries out different projects focused on university cooperation that aim at building bridges of long-term collaboration between the Catalan and African universities in order to strengthen capacities in the areas of training, research and knowledge transfer. The Catalan universities that form part of the Consortium are members of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (Universitat de Barcelona (UB); Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB); Universitat Politècnica de Cataluña (UPC); Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF ); Universitat de Girona (UdG); Universitat de Lleida (UdL); Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV); Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)). African universities in the Consortium are the University of Antananarivo (Madagascar), the University Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal), Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique), National University of Equatorial Guinea (Guinea) and the University of Yaounde I (Cameroon).
