AfriCultuReS – Enhancing Food Security in AFRIcan AgriCULTUral Systems with the Support of REmote Sensing - aims to design, implement and demonstrate an integrated agricultural monitoring and early warning system that will support decision making in the field of food security. AfriCultuReS will deliver a broad range of climatic, production, biophysical and economic information, for various regions in Africa. AfriCultuReS will apply geospatial science to sustainable agricultural development, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation in Africa. AfriCultuReS, supported by the GEO Secretariat, will involve all key players of AfriGEOSS, GEOGLAM, SIGMA, ARTEMIS, African Drought Observatory and other initiatives as well as partners representing the diversity of African agricultural systems, in an effort to push forward the services provided by current systems, with innovative fusion of data from multiple sources (EO, in-situ, citizen-based crowdsourcing, climate services and weather, crop models) in a vertical manner. Crop yield and biomass prediction models will be enhanced through the fusion of EO data and climate models, emphasizing the use of the complementary sensors of the EU Sentinels constellation. Geospatial products will be combined in a spatial Decision Support System (DSS) to enrich decision making and risk assessment. The geo component of the DSS will be compliant with the GEO’s interoperability standards, allowing its integration with the current services of the GEOSS Common Infrastructure. The African partners and collaborating networks will be essential for local training and promoting further use of the project tools. Social innovation will be used to increase the number of involved stakeholders and to boost the flow of information in a user-friendly manner. The final target will be to produce a web tool that will support early decision making for the stakeholders of African food production.

Focus on Africa Space Science and Technology 4 Future development (FAST4Future) aims at strengthening Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Africa Higher education by promoting Planetary and Space Science and Technology (PSST) for the sustainable growth and jobs creation in a continent that is rapidly embracing the 4th industrial revolution. PSST has been identified as key area of investment in Africa as it provides graduates and young scientists with both the necessary soft and practical skills to face 21st century challenges such as digital innovation and job creation. The aims of FAST4Future are: i) To increase the accessibility to STEM in African Higher Education (HE); ii) To modernize existing PSST programmes in collaboration with industry and policy makers; iii) To foster the internationalization of partner HEIs by promoting mobility of staff; iv) to promote standardization of PSST in Africa in support of students’ mobility. To achieve these ambitious goals FAST4future will promote the creation of a Centre of Excellence in PSST (CESST) linked to a virtual platform to increase the accessibility coordinate collaborative actions including: i) analysis of the conditions of women in STEM; ii) review existing PSST programs in order to fill the mismatches between academic offer and job market requirements; iii) draft a white paper for the credit recognition of PSST courses across African institutions; iv) train administrative staff and facilitate the mobility of academic staff; v) promote the transfer of skills in key strategic areas of PSST to boost the employability of graduate students. The creation of a virtual platform within CESST will open new pathways for dissemination of high quality academic contents that can potentially reach thousands of STEM students across the continent and facilitate the access to STEM disciplines for Africans living in remote areas, conflict zones and will, eventually, improve the number of women in STEM.