At the Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA) event in Washington, DC, held from September 18-19, 2024, Nabil Ksibi, Co-Project Lead of the Africa PID Alliance, introduced the Africa PID Alliance to a global audience. He shared the story behind the Alliance’s formation and its mission to focus on creating Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for Indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage, and patents. This work is already underway, with DOIs being generated to ensure the preservation and accessibility of Africa’s unique knowledge assets. Ksibi emphasized the significance of establishing a Digital Object Identifier Registration Agency within Africa, a move aimed at enhancing the visibility of African research data and supporting the global open science movement.

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About the Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA)

The Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA) nurtures cross-sector coalitions to tackle the systems-level challenges that are impeding the adoption of open science at scale. ORCA is committed to this effort because a more intentional approach to science is a critical component of a more just society. Open science encourages the engagement of diverse voices, perspectives, and expertise. As we face existential global challenges like climate change and pandemics, open science is a critical tool to ensure that both research processes and outcomes are more inclusive, and, by extension, more innovative, efficient, transparent, and trustworthy.

To learn more about ORCA, Visit here: https://www.orcaopen.org/

About Africa PID Alliance (APA)

The Africa PID Alliance is an Open Infrastructure project of the Training Centre on Communication (TCC Africa). The programme is dedicated to focus on the three neglected areas; African Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Heritage. 

The programme focuses on infrastructural development, policy and advocacy, and capacity strengthening. They aim to establish a sustainable scholarly infrastructure system with persistent identifiers, engage policymakers for favorable legal frameworks, and support policy actors in data mining processes. Their capacity strengthening involves training programs and collaborations to empower a competent workforce. The alliance's project, Invest in Open Research (IOR) from Africa, supports infrastructure, capacity building, seed funding, and policy advocacy. A percentage of the revenue from Africa PID Alliance is allocated to IOR as part of their fundraising strategy.

These focus areas are aligned with the programme's objectives to overcome  these challenges of digitizing research output by creating Persistent, Accessible, Affordable Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) in Africa. This initiative is crucial for advancing research accessibility and preserving cultural heritage.

To learn more about APA, Visit here: https://africapidalliance.org/