Proposed IEEE/Microsoft Mini-grant partnership for standards capacity building

1. Proposed IEEE/Microsoft Mini-grant partnership for standards capacity building Johan Eksteen Regional Standards Officer: Sub-Saharan Africa Microsoft December 2010

2. Contents • Need • Reality • Nature of Approach • Approach • Benefits

3. Need • Standards play an important role in economic development • Technology transfer • Market creation • Consumer confidence and protection • Strong drive for socio-economic development in Sub-Sahara Africa – standards can contribute • Need a predictable standards process to reap benefits. • A predictable standards process requires broad, informed and expert participation in the local standards processes. • The role of academia to both contribute current expertise and build capacity for future participation is clear.

4. Reality • Low levels of participation from academia in students seen in Sub-Saharan Africa – participation quite often skewed towards the higher age groups with little new talent flowing into the system • There are little incentive for academics and students to get involved in standards, especially in the Sub-Saharan Region • Need to find ways to incentivise academia in the region to get involved positively in standards – bring new talent and capacity into system

5. Nature of the Approach • Build on solutions to avoid fragmentation of efforts across different organisations – smart partnerships • Focus on solutions that has low risk and financially sustainable to convince decision makers from all stakeholders • Look for solutions that might be replicated in other regions • Create political support and buy-in in the region to sustain and possibly extend programme

6. Approach • Partner with IEEE-SA • Partner with ARSO • Incentivise students and lecturers that uses standards explicitly in their final year or post-graduate projects with a focus on Sub-Saharan organisations • High level launch of partnership to gain even more visibility • “Users” • Political capital – UN, AU, others

7. Approach (2) • Build upon existing IEEE programme • Extend the programme by offering similar incentives to Sub-Saharan students and faculty • Determine with IEEE whether this is Depth (more money for the same), Breadth (focus on more standards areas), or Scope (focus on other areas such as stds governance) • Limit risk by doing pilot first (substantive enough to measure effect) • Plan for expansion (e.g. larger, bringing more partners into initiative) based on outcome of pilot • Partner with ARSO as political sponsor.

8. Benefits (partnering) • Link to IEEE – stand on the shoulders of giants • IEEE has good standing in the region • Avoid fragmented efforts by building on existing programmes • Broaden reach beyond ISO in the regional approach • IEEE seems to be better recognised in academia than ISO in the region • Linking to existing programme • Familiar to target audience – better acceptance • Shorten time to success of partnership • Address perceived lack of progress in many capacity building efforts by leveraging and supporting successful IEEE programme • Use of Standards Maturity Chain in real world example • Link to ARSO • Tangible contribution, something that they can celebrate, thereby creating opportunities into the future

9. Benefits (Ecosystem) • Get more expert academic participation in standards and building future base of standards (aware) professionals • Bring more voices to the table countering aging demographics and contributing to predictable standards system • Make stronger case for highlighting role of standards in socio-economic development • Demonstrate on-going international commitment to human resource development in region, a key policy issue, opening doors to other opportunities e.g. AU, UN agencies etc. • Opportunity to highlight standards efforts and commitment with high level PR (e.g. launch event MS, IEEE, ARSO, hopefully on President/VP level.) • Leverage Microsoft presence in region to create more opportunities within the region/other partners/organisations • Should be replicable in other regions

10. Extra Information

11. IEEE programme • IEEE is offering mini-grantsfor graduate and upperclassman design project student application papers. • Grants include US$500 for students, with additional mini-grants for faculty mentors.  • More info: http://www.ieee.org/education_careers/education/standards/applications.html

12. Standards “Maturity” Chain and audience mapping