Mobile application lab grant funding / Africa / deadline May 31

Infodev , a donor-funded ICT
for development agency hosted by the World Bank, has formed a
public/private partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Government of Finland and Nokia to undertake a joint program on Creating
Sustainable Businesses for the Knowledge Economy, worth some €12
million, that will run from 2010 – 2012. This request for expressions of
interest (EOI) concerns Track 1A of the program, on the establishment of
a regional mobile applications lab for Africa. As the implementing
agency for the program, infoDev is looking to identify either one, or
two, host institutions in Africa where the activities of the lab can be
situated. This grant award for between US$200’000 and US$300’000
(depending on the number of labs selected) covers the establishment of
each lab, by the end of 2010, and the start-up phase in early 2011.
Additional grant funding may be available later following successful
completion of the start-up phase.

The services to be offered by the lab include:

  1. Training and accreditation for mobile applications developers.
  2. Certification of applications and facilities for developers to
     test applications under operational conditions.
  3. Fostering competition for ideas among applications developers.
  4. Business mentoring to assist applications developers with
     bringingtheir ideas to market. In this sense, the Labs could serve
     as specialized business incubators.
  5. Replication of successful applications, between
     countries,languages and operating systems.
  6. Developing a repository of knowledge in ICT4D.
  7. Conducting consumer behaviour research.
  8. Facilitating access to finance and access to markets.

On the basis of responses to this EOI, a shortlist of candidate host
organizations will be drawn up who will receive a more detailed request
for proposals.

To respond to this EOI, please send a capability profile and a covering
letter by email to tkelly-at-worldbank.org, with a copy to
info-at-infodev.org, no later than 11.59 pm EST on May 31 2010.

Katrin Verclas
MobileActive.org
katrin @ mobileactive.org

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