2016-2019 H2020 ICT-39 AFRICA WAZIUP. Open Innovation Platform for IoT-Big Data in Sub-Saharan Africa. I would say that it all started with this project! Even if the developed technologies have been greatly improved in recent years, they are still cornerstones for many of our activities on IoT, smart agriculture and capacity-building in Africa!
The core team behind H2020 WAZIUP consisted of Abdur Rahim (FKB at that time), Philippe Cousin (EGM at that time) and myself. H2020 WAZIUP is a technology-driven EU-Africa project developing a fully open source IoT end-to-end (sensors, networking and software) platform, specialized to meet African needs/applications in terms of cost, energy, internet connectivity and simplicity. Abdur Rahim was the coordinator and I was the scientific leader of the WP2 “Open IoT sensing and communication platform” which tasks are to develop an open, low-cost and long-range LoRa IoT framework. It was with H2020 WAZIUP that UPPA developed its expertise in deploying LoRa radio networks and produced numerous tutorials & videos on how to build cost-effective and energy-efficient devices with LoRa transmission capabilities.
H2020 WAZIUP’s technological achievements and the numerous tutorials that have been produced can be found on the LowCostLoRaGw github repository that proposes a complete low-cost LoRa IoT framework from energy-efficient end-devices to open & versatile IoT gateway. The repository was created for H2020 WAZIUP and enriched by additional resources from H2020 WAZIHUB project. These resources can be considered as foundation for many of our activities on IoT and smart agriculture (updated tutorials on IoT hardware can be found on PRIMA INTEL-IRRIS tutorial pages though). It was also with H2020 WAZIUP that we started a long series of exciting dissemination events and capacity-building sessions in Africa! We met so many nice people in all of these events!
The whole WAZIUP team was happy to get these recognitions from the EU commission:
April 12th, 2022. European Internet of Things technology supports innovation in Africa: two EU-Africa innovation projects have succeeded in rolling out advanced digital technologies to support entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa.
June 19th, 2020. The low-cost, low-power and long-distance cattle collar developed in the EU H2020 WAZIUP project has been identified by the European Commission’s Innovation Radar!
For those interested, you can look at these additional selected resources:
- Deploying low-cost, long-range IoT for rural and remote areas in Africa. Presentation at ITU Telecom World 2018 at the ITU’s SmartABC Pavilion WAZIUP workshop. Durban, South Africa, September 10th, 2018.
- Deploying low-cost and long-range IoT in developing countries. Invited Talk at IoT-Tunisia workshop, Sesame University, Tunis, Tunisia, April 26th, 2018.
- The IoT ecosystem and make it happening!. Invited Talk at IRD/UMMISCO/University Yaoundé, Yaoundé, Cameroon, March 19th, 2018.
- More talks and tutorials are available on my web page. Look for those with the
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From H2020 WAZIUP to WAZIUP e.V.
With all the results achieved from EU H2020 WAZIUP, WAZIUP e.V. non-profit organization has been founded in 2018 to promote the development and the deployment of low-cost and open-source disruptive IoT/AI technologies in a more sustainable manner. WAZIUP e.V. operates mainly in Africa but also apply its expertise in many international projects worldwide. WAZIUP e.V. is directed by Dr. Abdur Rahim. Pr. Congduc Pham is acting as Scientific Manager with Dr. Corentin Dupont as Scientific Director. WAZIUP e.V. is always committed to open-source development and its numerous contributions are published on the WAZIUP e.V.’s GitHub.