Knowledge Futures – Building public digital infrastructure that enables [African] communities to publish documents and data more effectively.

We will hear about fostering trust through interoperable preprint review metadata with Docmaps, and advancing open publishing with community services.

Watch the recording here:

Speaker profile

Emily Esten is the Project Lead at Knowledge Futures.

In her varied work experience – from project lead to curator, educator to site developer – her primary focus has been on engaging with audiences, content, and tools to build better research and teaching communities. She has played an active role in shaping collaborations, training, and programming around digital tools for scholarly communication.

In addition to her day-to-day work, she has done freelance site development for Contingent Magazine and Journey75 at the Mark Twain House & Museum. She previously served as Director of Communications for the National Emerging Museum Professionals Network.

Speaker profile

Dawit Tegbaru is the Director of Community Publishing Services at Knowledge Futures Group, where he plays a pivotal role in helping communities establish robust publishing workflows and high-quality outputs with editorial, production, and content enrichment services. Drawing from his extensive experience in managing publications for various societies, Dawit is deeply committed to advocacy and inclusivity in scholarly communications. He works with a dedicated team to develop innovative tech, services, and strategic partnerships that promote equitable knowledge exchange, and help shape the landscape of academic publishing.

Questions that were addressed during the session

1. How does the Knowledge Futures Group envision leveraging digital infrastructure to empower African communities in effectively publishing documents and data?

2. Could you highlight any specific tools or technologies developed by the Knowledge Futures Group that have been particularly effective in supporting document and data publishing in African contexts?

3. What are some key considerations in designing digital infrastructure solutions to ensure they are accessible and relevant to diverse African communities?

4. How does the Knowledge Futures Group collaborate with local stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, and community organizations, to co-create and implement public digital infrastructure initiatives in Africa?

  1. In what region in Africa does Knowledge Futures have the highest reach and what plans are there to spread more to other regions?

About the webinar series

This webinar was co-organized by UbuntuNet Alliance and Access 2 Perspectives as part of the ORCID Global Participation Program.

ORCID is the persistent identifier for researchers to share their accomplishments (research articles, data, etc with funding agencies, publishers, data repositories, and other research workflows.

AfricArXiv is a community-led digital archive for African research communication. By enhancing the visibility of African research, we enable discoverability and collaboration opportunities for African scientists on the continent as well as globally.

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