White-green pioneers

Styrians digitize African schools

(Bild: eeeAustria)

Great success for eeeAustria: the Graz-based e-learning provider has landed a multi-million euro contract in Africa and is now digitizing schools in Tanzania, more precisely in Zanzibar.

With a total of around 120 employees, the eee Group (eee stands for education, e-government and e-solutions) is one of the leading providers of e-learning and training throughout Europe. However, the Graz-based company has also long been successful on other continents. After building a vocational training center in Indonesia - including carpentry workshops and training kitchens - there is now a success story from Africa.

The eee Group has built a vocational training center in Indonesia.(Bild: eeeAustria)

They are currently working on the "digital school" in Zanzibar (Tanzania). "We supply the software, which is of course made in Styria, run training courses and also supply the hardware, from the servers to the laptops," explains Stefan Düss, Managing Director for international projects at the eee Group. The contract concluded with the Ministry of Education of Zanzibar (the paradisiacal island is a semi-autonomous state of Tanzania) brings the Styrian company a "mid-single-digit million amount", as Düss reveals to the "Krone".

Stefan Düss is Managing Director of eee Austria International Projects GmbH.(Bild: Foto Furgler)

"You need staying power"
However, this project was not a sure-fire success. After all, it was launched in November 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, under the leadership of authorized signatory Theresa Wutz. "You need a lot of staying power for projects like this - it usually takes between two and three years from initiation to implementation, and coronavirus with all its effects hasn't necessarily made things any easier here," explains Düss. Financing has now also been secured in Tanzania with the Austrian Development Bank. 

Hoping for the next coup
And soon they are hoping for the next coup: "We have been working on a project in the Philippines for a year now. We hope to sign a cooperation agreement regarding digitalization in the near future." Incidentally, the eee Group is also hard to ignore in Austria: in this country, for example, it is the market leader in school administration systems, but also works with corporations, the EU Commission and UN authorities.