DIDAIhub

About the project

About this project

DIDAIhub — the Digital Data and Artificial Intelligence Hub at the University of Turku — is a community platform and a catalyst of innovative research and learning solutions with global impact. It approaches global sustainability challenges with an inclusive, transformative mindset, combining local talent with open data, digital technologies and citizen engagement to co-create impact-based solutions in multi-stakeholder environments.

The hub grew out of two decades of Finland–Tanzania university cooperation (since 2003) and its flagship programmes GeoICT4e and the Tanzania Resilience Academy. It was consolidated in 2022–2023 as the University of Turku's Geospatial and Digital Technology Hub, gathering the tools, playbooks, open data and learning resources developed across dozens of projects into one open community.

DIDAIhub pursues system-level, transformative research across six themes: GeoAI methods and participatory approaches in landscape systems; place- and community-based spatial planning; open digital innovations in climate-service co-creation; digital skills and transformative learning; digital social innovations for sustainable development; and climate mobilities and spatial justice. It shares solution playbooks — such as the Multi-Competence Learning (MCL) Playbook and the Geovisualisation Challenge Blueprint — alongside open geospatial data and tools and open online learning resources.

It connects seven Tanzanian and Finnish partner universities — the University of Dar es Salaam, Ardhi University, Sokoine University of Agriculture, the State University of Zanzibar, Moshi Co-operative University, Turku UAS and Novia UAS — with a wider network including Aalto University, the University of Twente, the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, the National Land Survey of Finland, ICOS, the Kenya Meteorological Department and the Copernicus Academy. Its projects are funded by the World Bank, GIZ, the European Space Agency, Erasmus+, the Academy of Finland and Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and reach across Tanzania, Finland, Kenya, Germany, Malta, Norway and beyond.

Objectives

• Turn open data, digital tools, skills and competences into actionable, climate-resilient solutions
• Advance GeoAI and participatory approaches for landscape and spatial-planning systems
• Co-create open digital climate services with African cities and communities
• Grow digital skills through challenge-driven, transformative geospatial learning
• Foster digital social innovations, innovation ecosystems and living labs for sustainable development
• Share open solution playbooks, geospatial data and tools, and online learning resources
• Connect experts and partners across Finland, Tanzania and the wider global network

Key activities