Digital technologies and entrepreneurship are integral to socio-economic development and generate considerable enthusiasm in African societies. Our interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners analyses the effect that the spread of entrepreneurship ideas and digital technologies have on lives, labor and subjectivities in African societies, with the aim of using academic insight to promote societal change.
Our network provides a generative environment for novel work and seeks critical engagement with all things technology and entrepreneurship. We conduct grounded analyses that document the current paradigm of change through entrepreneurship and digital technologies in Africa. Thick data and contextual knowledge are integral to our research output and form the basis for our engagement with practitioners, policy-makers and fellow academics.
The strength of the community is its interdisciplinary background. A handful of like-minded researchers founded the community in 2013 to support each others’ research. Together we cover science and technology studies, media and communication studies, anthropology, sociology, history, economic geography, organization and management studies and entrepreneurship.
We are expanding and fostering emerging research talents from African societies as well as forging new, interdisciplinary and transcontinental research collaborations. We welcome anyone with an interest in the fields of business, management, anthropology, entrepreneurship, and sociology in African societies. Practitioners or academics into hands-on data collection that examines phenomena in African societies from digitization to datafication, from hubs to venture capitalists, from micro-entrepreneurs to programmers and from transnational policies to national reforms are also welcome.
We offer peer-to-peer feedback, mentoring and support to our members in navigating their dissertations, the publication process and academic life and finding their voice as practitioners and activists through our newly inaugurated virtual laboratory initiative. Our members include senior researchers, postdoctoral, PhD and predoctoral students with extensive research experience and are here to help you make the best of your career in academia or industry. We also have a number of supportive members with extensive experience in digital technologies and entrepreneurship who are willing to support our early career researchers in various ways.