First digital production laboratory opens in Kinshasa

The Agence Universitairede la Francophonie (AUF) and the Orange Foundation DRC have launched the Democratic Republic of the Congo's first digital production laboratory.

Lisungi FabLab, located at AUF’s Campus Numérique Francophone (French-language digital campus) in Kinshasa, is primarily intended to support the disadvantaged youth in getting employment, but students and researchers can also use the state-of-the-art technological facilities, said the AUF.

The creation of Lisungi follows an agreement between the AUF and the Orange Foundation DRC, signed in March 2017, to improve youth employment prospects and professional skills. The first such laboratory, Ongola FabLab, was set up the following month in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Lisungi, the partnership’s second FabLab, provides cutting-edge technology and equipment including 3D printer and scanner, sewing machine, digital embroidery machine and laser burner, for the implementation of ideas and the acquisition of practical skills and knowledge through digitisation, said AUF.

Although Lisungi FabLab will give priority to young people and women who are disadvantaged, AUF said students, lecturers and researchers could also benefit from the laboratory, as well as start-up enterprises and artists.

The agency quoted Professor Alain Ondoua, regional director of AUF for Central Africa and the Great Lakes, as saying: “The establishment of AUF in Kinshasa, which now accommodates a FabLab, is the realisation of change within the vast network of French-language digital campuses in the world.

"These new-generation campuses, known by their French acronym CNEUF (Campus du Nouvel Espace Universitaire Francophone), are designed for the dissemination and acquisition of knowledge, the socio-economic promotion of knowledge, expertise and interpersonal skills.” – Compiled by Jane Marshall

This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.