The eI4Africa and iMENTORS partnerships are very pleased to welcome a new associated organisation to the eI4Africa/iMENTORS joint conference on the theme “e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future” that will take place on October 29, 2014, in Brussels, Belgium.

The AFRICA BUILD (http://africabuild.eu) is a Coordination Action aiming to support and develop advanced Centres of Excellence in health care, education and research in the African countries, through Information Technologies. This project is supported by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT). AFRICA BUILD started 1st August 2011 and will run for a period of 36 months.

This support will come, in the initial phases, from established research centres located at EU countries, including WHO, the leading medical organization at a worldwide level. For later phases, a significant challenge of this CA is to generate virtual communities of African researchers that can continue these initial efforts by creating, developing and exchanging, collaboratively, new knowledge, methods, informatics tools and data. The AFRICA BUILD vision aims to address fundamental problems in health research and education in a low income geographical area like Africa, providing innovative solutions by optimizing and sharing resources through the use of novel technologies.

From a conceptual perspective AFRICA BUILD will provide the scientific, technological and financial support for developing centres of excellence in health education and research in Africa. These activities will foster the capacities and scientific excellence in the African centres and will be the starting point for future collaborative developments that will ensure sustainability once the CA ends. Experiences of the consortium in previous successful projects and initiatives will be used for the exchanges and initiatives proposed in this Coordination Action.

The “e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future” Conference at a glance.