About Ungana-Afrika > History

What started as an international group of professional volunteers, working from a kitchen table in Johannesburg, quickly grew to an African hub of nonprofit technology support and innovative program development.

Re-Defining Nonprofit ICT Support in Africa

In 2002, OSISA (Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa) and AIESEC (the world's largest student organisation) joined in a partnership to provide basic technology support to the development community in Southern Africa. From the start, they struggled to implement a program that could meet the overwhelming support demand in the region. As a result, in 2003, the partnership took new shape under the name Ungana-Afrika (Swahili for "connecting Africa").

Ungana-Afrika was initially an autonomous group of diverse international volunteers, recruited through OSISA and AIESEC, and based in Johannesburg. This new team was tasked to re-evaluate support models (through pilot efforts and collaboration with the international nonprofit ICT support community) that could better mobilize technology support efforts within Southern Africa's development community.

OSISA and AIESEC were catalysts for Ungana-Afrika

New Support Tools and Concepts, Much More than Just Research

From the start, Ungana-Afrika not only researched new ICT support concepts, but delivered them, on the ground, within Southern Africa. In 2003, while piloting an innovative model of mobile support called eRiding (initially launched in the US), Ungana-Afrika provided direct support to organsations in 6 Southern Africa countries. This included basic computer training for over 100 staff members, and the implementation of new technology plans, policies and infrastructure for more than 15 organsations.

With this effort, Ungana-Afrika also re-shaped several concepts related to Organisational Technology Planning, ICT training, and support logistics, better adapting them to the unique needs of development organsations in Southern Africa.

In mid-2004, acknowledging the need for a sustainable nonprofit technology support hub in Southern Africa, Ungana-Afrika registered as an independent non-profit organisation and moved to an office in Pretoria, South Africa. With continued core support from Soros Foundations Network, and several project-specific funders (such as the Government of Finland, and Hivos), the growing team continued delivering support, researching new support solutions and tools, and strengthening links to the international community of nonprofit technology support providers.

Ungana-Afrika Today: Scaling-up ICT Support and Training Efforts

The quality outcomes from these projects has proven Ungana-Afrika to be a trusted partner within the ICT4D sector. Today, Ungana-Afrika is still providing direct ICT support and training to the general African development community, but is now focusing heavily on capacity building, and toolkit development to assist other ICT support providers (nonprofits and SMEs). Ungana-Afrika has learned that there is a big niche for support efforts that are targeted directly at the local ICT support community that it is also part of, and has launched a whole service area (The Centre of Excellence) around it.

Read more about Ungana-Afrika's service areas and current activities.

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Ungana-Afrika is a non-profit organisation registered in South Africa: 034-328 NPO

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