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Professor Tegawendé Bissyande, who is leading the project, aims to create strong knowledge links between Luxembourg and West Africa. Photo: Uni.lu 

During a virtual press conference on Friday in the presence of minister for development cooperation and humanitarian affairs, Franz Fayot (LSAP), the Universitry and the foreign affairs ministry presented its LuxWays initiative. The project was developed by the University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) with three participating universities--the University of Cheikh Anta Diop from Senegal, the University of Joseph Ki-Zerbo and the Virtual University, both from Burkina Faso.

The goal is to allow the best students at the partnering universities in West Africa to participate in cybersecurity PhD programs in Luxembourg. This will allow them to eventually return to their home universities to teach students about issues related to cybersecurity, such as FinTech systems and Artificial Intelligence. 

During the briefing, Fayot pointed out that "covid-19 has changed a lot of things in our lifestyle and society and also has led to the acceleration of digital transformation”. But with this boost in digitalisation new risks in the area of cybersecurity have also come to the fore, he said. These risks are particularly severe in areas where there is not enough expertise, which is precisely why the ministry of foreign and European affairs is supporting the project through its Digital4Development (D4D) portfolio within the directorate for development cooperation and humanitarian affairs, Fayot explained. 

Creating strong ties

 At the head of the project is professor Tegawendé Bissyande, an expert in cybersecurity and software engineering and a senior researcher at the SnT.

Bissyande, who is originally from Burkina Faso, says creating strong links in academia between Luxembourg, his home of choice, and West Africa, his country of birth, was a driving force in initiating the project. 

However, at the same time he also sees a necessity in keeping the PhD candidates who come to the University of Luxembourg in touch with the communities back in their home countries. “Candidates who come to Luxembourg have already signed up at the University back home and then during the PhD they don’t spend the whole year in Luxembourg but they will regularly have to go back for one or two months a year to contribute to teaching and research at their home universities, which will help them to keep strong ties with the community back home,“ he explained. 

Two PhD candidates are currently already working at the University of Luxembourg as part of the program. Three more will be recruited next year and five more the following year, adding up to a total of 10 candidates who will eventually go back to their respective West African universities to share their knowledge in the realm of cybersecurity and educate future generations.