African Universities Take Green Computing to Brussels in Climate Innovation Showcase
A consortium of Southern African universities brought their climate-change research to the heart of Europe this week, demonstrating how smart computing is being harnessed to tackle one of the continent’s most pressing challenges.
Representatives from five universities across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region gathered in Brussels from 16 to 17 April 2026 for the Cluster Meeting on Green Transition in Africa, where they exhibited the work of the Grow Green Africa (Gr2A) project – a collaborative initiative focused on smart computing for climate change mitigation.
The Gr2A project was among a number of ventures showcased at the event’s exhibitions, which highlighted projects awarded grants under the 2023/2024 European Union (EU) Intra Africa Mobility Schemes. Each of the consortium’s five member institutions was represented by its institutional project coordinator, who presented posters, promotional materials, and a demonstration video documenting the project’s achievements to date.
From L – R: Prof. Toumas Mäkilä (Turku), Prof Nomusa Dlodlo (Rhodes University), Dr Sibonile Moyo (NUST, Zimbabwe), Dr Vusi Tsabedze (UNESWA), Prof. Nikodemus Angula (NUST, Namibia), Prof Santhi Kumaran (CBU), Dr Paul Makoni (NUST, Zimbabwe) not in the picture.
The participating universities were the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) from Zimbabwe, Rhodes University from South Africa, the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) from Namibia, the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) from Eswatini, and the Copperbelt University (CBU) from Zambia. They were joined by their European technical partner, the University of Turku (UTU) from Finland.
In a nod to the project’s environmental ethos, the exhibition materials featured a QR code linking visitors directly to the consortium’s website at https://gr2a.org/ a deliberate choice to reduce paper use and model the paperless culture the project advocates. The website serves as a central repository for the project’s publications, promotional materials, and consortium activities.
Research published through the project spans several critical areas of climate science and sustainable development, including renewable energy, smart agriculture, underground water modelling, green mining, and the use of information and communications technology for climate change mitigation. Each member university has taken on a specialised research focus within this broader framework.
The Brussels showcase marks a significant milestone for the Gr2A consortium as it continues to demonstrate how African academic institutions, in partnership with European counterparts, are developing home grown technological solutions to address the global climate crisis.
