A significant addition to the Africa FIRST programme is the Colocation Programme, whereby satellite ground stations are colocated with science instruments and compute infrastructure. The pilot colocation site was established at the Kuntunse telescope in Ghana and the pilot programme has been a success.

Decision-making on critical issues such as climate change and basic resource security relies on robust information, the essential building block of which is data. Across Africa, data remains insufficient and costly. We therefore look to new, low-cost, green and autonomous data access solutions enabled by African-owned infrastructure.

Of the world's 20 countries with the weakest digital skills, 12 are in Africa, and only 12% of Africa's tertiary education graduates have formal digital training. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to produce some 230 million jobs that require digital skills by 2030, with a similarly large pool of workers needing upskilling or retraining to meet this demand. Development institutions like the IFC and World Bank previously estimated a US $130 billion opportunity in digital skilling investment through 2030, highlighting both the challenge and potential economic opportunity of building digital human capital on the continent.

Africa FIRST is a continent-wide, self-sustaining data-sharing project, with purpose-built green infrastructure for the generation, acquisition, storage, transfer and processing of data. The key objective is to launch and host Africa’s first Distributed Supercomputer and an Open Data Platform with a user-friendly interface for the sharing of data with academia, government and industry, to achieve shared goals in education, research, innovation and entrepreneurship, and enable the development of science and technology solutions for African resilience.

This initiative sits on the foundational work of the original African VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) Network (AVN) Programme of the DSTI, implemented by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), developing Square Kilometre Array (SKA) readiness across the eight African Partner Countries (APCs) to the SKA. The DSTI subsequently encompassed the AVN activities and several affiliated programmes, under the umbrella of one cross-cutting Africa Radio Astronomy Programme (ARAP), in order to leverage the development opportunities, improve efficiencies, and mitigate the risk of uncoordinated activities. The new Africa Programme Strategy was accepted by the eight SKA APCs, namely; Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. Radio astronomy is a data-based space science and as such is an enabler in combating the digital divide in Africa.

The Colocation Ground Station programme represents FSDA's innovative approach to financial sustainability, creating revenue-generating infrastructure that supports both scientific research and commercial applications. These facilities co-locate scientific instruments with data processing infrastructure and commercial satellite ground stations, creating multi-purpose innovation hubs.

Each colocation site integrates Earth observation satellite receiving stations, navigation system ground infrastructure, and passive radar technologies for applications ranging from

climate monitoring to poaching mitigation and disaster management. By sharing infrastructure costs across multiple users and applications, the programme achieves economies of scale whilst generating sustainable revenue streams.

The pilot colocation site at the Kuntunse telescope in Ghana has demonstrated the viability of this model, successfully integrating scientific research with commercial data services. The programme creates high-tech employment opportunities in radio astronomy, data administration, software development, and value-added data services. It also fosters technology transfer and skills development, building local capacity in satellite operations, data processing, and space technology applications.

Revenue is generated through data services, ground station access fees, and value-added applications of Earth observation data for agriculture, urban planning, environmental monitoring, and disaster response. This sustainable business model ensures that FSDA's operations can continue beyond the initial investment period, creating long-term impact and reducing dependency on external funding.