About Us
CRG Digital Africa
The consultative research group (CRG) ‘Digital Africa’ provides a multidisciplinary network for fostering dialogue between researchers focusing on digital trends on the African continent.
African state bureaucracies are digitizing public records, central banks are exploring and implementing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and digital solutions to ID management often include biometric technologies. In addition, social media platforms such as WhatsApp, X and Facebook are important communication technologies for various forms of digital activism. Meanwhile, investments in digital technologies are growing exponentially both by leading multinational ICT-companies such as Orange, Vodafone, Google and Meta, as well as by a young generation of IT-savvy entrepreneurs building home-made digital solutions that contribute to the digital infrastructures on the continent. Such forms of digital world-making raise a number of urgent queries including questions related to digital rights and data privacy, digital divisions, surveillance and cyber security.
The CRG understands these transformations in a broad context. It welcomes historical, spatial, social, political, economic, and cultural contributions to the interdisciplinary discussion of digital developments.
Programme Point Sud
The Goethe-University of Frankfurt/Main and the German Research Foundation (DFG) have established the ‘Programme Point Sud’ in order to fund Africa-related workshops and conferences in the humanities and social sciences, based on partnerships between German and African academic institutions. The primary goal of the programme is the exchange and networking of scientists from Germany, Africa and other parts of the world. In addition, the promotion of young scientists plays a central role.