The R&D & Innovation program aims to develop academic partnerships in Education and Research with reference Universities from advanced or emerging countries, with two objectives:

• Workforce development: Increase the number of cybersecurity curriculum, teachers and students: train PhD teachers and researchers, support the development of on-line and on site MSc in cybersecurity
• Research: Encourage research in cybersecurity, that is currently way below Africa’s leading position in the development of Digital Financial Services. It may cover funding of or co-supervising PhD thesis and research works, coordination between research agenda, inter-institution collaboration on research papers, supporting research labs, dissemination of findings (papers, research conferences…).

The limited number of specialized cybersecurity higher education curriculum in Africa bridles the development of necessary skills for private and public sector, in particular for the Financial Sector confronted to rising threats and stronger regulatory requirements.

Furthermore, many promising students that study abroad do not come back on the continent. Fostering research will lead to the creation of cybersecurity startups and qualified jobs.