Digital technologies and entrepreneurship are integral to socio-economic development and generate considerable enthusiasm in African societies. Our interdisciplinary network of researchers and practitioners analyses the effect that the spread of entrepreneurship ideas and digital technologies have on lives, labor and business in African societies, with the aim of using academic insight to promote societal change.
Our network provides a generative environment for novel work and seeks critical engagement with all things technology and entrepreneurship. We conduct grounded analyses that document the current paradigm of change through entrepreneurship and digital technologies in Africa. Our methodological approaches stretch from ethnography to qualitative data collection to field experiments. Thick, primary data and contextual knowledge anchored in a particular context in an African society are integral to our research output and form the basis for our engagement with practitioners, policy-makers and fellow academics.
The strength of the network is its interdisciplinary background and the mix of emerging and experienced researchers. In 2013, a handful of like-minded researchers founded the network to support each others’ research. Together we cover science and technology studies, media and communication studies, anthropology, sociology, history, economic geography, organization and management studies and entrepreneurship.
Our key objective is to catalyze emerging research talent from African societies, support Africa-focused world-class research, and forge new, interdisciplinary and transcontinental research collaborations. We welcome anyone with a research interest in the fields of business, management, anthropology, entrepreneurship, economics, and sociology in African societies. Practitioners or academics who are interested in primary data collection that examines phenomena in African societies from digitization to datafication, from hubs to venture capitalists, from micro-entrepreneurs to programmers and from transnational policies to national reforms are more than welcome.
We offer peer-to-peer feedback, mentoring and support to our fellows in navigating their dissertations, the publication process and academic life, more broadly, as well as finding their voice as practitioners and academics through our virtual laboratory. As part of the virtual labratory, the network convenes once a month for high-quality engagements with our fellows’ work. Our fellows include experienced researchers, postdoctoral, PhD and predoctoral students with extensive research experience and are here to help you make the best of your career in academia or industry. We also have an extended network with extensive experience in digital technologies and entrepreneurship who are willing to support emerging research talent in various ways.