Cohort One - African Union Digital & Innovation Fellowship

About Cohort 1

The fellowship project is a robust fellowship project that identifies and deploys highly competent tech innovators within the African continent to organs within the African Union Headquarters and organs as ‘resident fellows’ to understand the system within those organs; identify challenges within the system and propose solutions to these challenges. The fellows will be expected to co-create and build innovative tailor-made products and processes that improve the delivery of the African Union’s mandate especially in the context of good governance and citizens engagement. Additionally, the project will seek to facilitate conditions for building the internal capacity of the host African Union organs in the long term.

The fellowship project is implemented through the BMZ Commission’s GIZ DataCipation project which supports the African Union and its organs to enhance its mandate on citizens engagement. Adopting a series of interventions and mechanisms, the DataCipation provides advisory and implementation support to the African Union to engage African citizens in the implementation of its mandate. In this context, the project is providing support to the African Union to implement a Digital and Innovation Fellowship Project.

Eligibility Requirements:

Be based in Africa and must be a National of an African Union member state;
Be under the age of 40 prior to the time of application;
Hold a tertiary education degree or its equivalent;
Have the capacity to gather comprehensive information on complex problems or situations, and the ability to evaluate and analyze information accurately in order to identify key issues and proffer solutions;
Have experience and technical know-how in designing innovative technology products/solutions;
Be available to travel in late October 2021 to participate in an induction workshop during the AfriLabs Annual Gathering in Abuja, Nigeria;
Be available and willing to dedicate 12 months from November 2021 to September 2022. Fellows will be required to take a break from current obligations and relocate to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November 2021.
Applicants who speak more than one AU official language (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili) are strongly advised to apply.

Application and Selection

The African Union Digital and Innovation Fellowship application is open to all eligible applicants and the selection process is completely merit-based.

Stage 1: At the close of the application window, all eligible applications will be assessed by independent reviewers and 30 top scorers will be picked for the next stage of the selection process as finalists.

Stage 2: Finalists will undergo rounds of interviews by the AU departments/organs and the best 10 will be confirmed as fellows. Selected fellows will be mandated to attend the Fellows Induction Workshop at the 2021 AfriLabs Annual Gathering holding in Abuja Nigeria in October and a virtual pre-deployment training before traveling to Addis Ababa and to be deployed to the AU departments/organs in November.

Cohort 1 of the fellowship program ran between August 2021 and July 2023 and deployed 13 fellows to 12 units within organs of the AU

The fellowship has enhanced both professional and skill development of fellows through increased confidence and expanded network

The fellowship program was robust program that groomed and exposed the fellows to be better positioned as leaders with increased confidence working with a more global perspective to work across their expanded professional networks.

88.9% of the respondents mentioned that the fellowship boosted their confidence to work and contribute to International development matters. 77.8% of respondents’ network have been expanded through their interactions with professionals on the program, likewise 66.7% attest that their understanding and experience of International development has improved based on global perspective.