How AETRF's COVID-19 Response Built the Track Record Behind This Campaign

When COVID-19 spread across the continent in 2020, AETRF's network didn't stand on the sidelines — it reconvened. Drawing on the same coordination model built during the 2014 Ebola response, AETRF served as the Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) implementing partner and coordinator for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Frontier Technology Hub COVIDaction initiative, working alongside the Royal Academy of Engineering to build technology and innovation pipelines supporting the pandemic response across Africa and South Asia — including local production of medical equipment, digital fabrication, and community-driven solutions.

The network's contribution didn't stop there. AETRF also supported the Schmidt Futures Tech+COVID19 initiative, lending its frontline experience to a global effort matching technologists with pandemic response needs. And when the moment called for direct continental coordination, AETRF wrote to Africa CDC to offer collaboration — not waiting to be asked, but stepping forward as a partner with proven ground-level credibility.

This is what sets AETRF apart from a one-time crisis response: a network that shows up again and again — 2014 Ebola, COVID-19, and now the 2026 DRC Ebola response — each time bringing the same discipline, the same partnerships, and the same commitment to solving real problems for the people facing them.