• Fig. 1: The founders of the project (f.l.t.r.): Jörg Linstädter (DAI), Matthieu Honegger (University of Neuchatel), Sofia Fonseca (Teiduma, Consultancy on Heritage and Culture), Jonathan Haws (University of Louisville), Nuno Bicho (ICArEHB – University of the Algarve).

This was when it all began! Sofia Fonseca, from Teiduma, together with the Jörg Linstädter, from DAI and Bruno Bicho, from the ICArEHB– University of the Algarve (UAlg), organized a meeting in Faro on the 19th of December of 2016. There were also Matthieu Honegger, from the University of Neuchatel and Jonathan Haws, from the University of Louisville. The idea was to bring together different colleagues and institutions working in Africa to start creating the MOOC structure and the future of the online platform. What would we like to have in our first course? Which African colleagues we would contact to join the project? Which main objectives would the platform have? And finally, what were the main challenges to overcome?

It was a very important moment with the partners presenting their different projects in Africa and brainstorming together to answer the questions that always arrive at the beginning of any endeavour!

Sofia Fonseca started the presentations with an introduction to “E-Learning and the future of archaeological and heritage education in Africa”. Nuno Bicho, presented the ICArEHB project “The Massingir region in Mozambique”, followed by Jörg Linstädter and “The German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and it’s projects in Africa”.

Jonathan Haws made a presentation regarding his project on “The coastal Archaeology in Mozambique” and Matthieu Honegger, took us to Sudan to meet the “Archaeological project in Kerma (Northern Sudan): Research, valorization and protection of the cultural heritage”. Finally, João Cascalheira ended the meeting with “Learning from stone tools in Africa: the example of Mozambique”.

  • Sofia Fonseca
  • Nuno Bicho
  • Jörg Linstädter
  • Jonathan Haws
  • Matthieu Honegger
  • João Cascalheira

We had good participation from the public that raised interesting questions and some doubts about online education.


It is always interesting to see how new technologies or new ways of doing, may raise suspicions, many of them very reasonable, and how throughout the process, we will have to answer and solve some them.

Author: Sofia Fonseca