Osmos

Founded in 2015, OSMOS is a non-profit think-and-do tank that aims to become the leading hub for mutually beneficial international partnerships in the Baltic States. OSMOS brings together practitioners, businesses, political, and academic communities working in and with EU partner countries. Between 2019 and 2022, OSMOS implemented the Digital Explorers project with partners from the public and private sectors. This first-of-its-kind partnership project between Lithuania and Nigeria provided training and career advancement opportunities for 30 young Nigerian IT talents in 13 Lithuanian ICT companies, created €2.5 million of added value for the Lithuanian ICT sector, stimulated direct Lithuanian investment in Nigeria, and opened up opportunities for cooperation between Lithuania and Nigeria in FinTech. In 2021, Digital Explorers was recognised by the European Commission as a European success story in talent partnerships, while addressing digital transformation, migration, sustainable growth and jobs priorities of the renewed EU-Africa partnership agenda. After the first phase of Digital Explorers, the project is being further developed to include new partner countries (Kenya, Armenia, Iraq) and to share experiences with other Baltic States (Latvia and Estonia). OSMOS is a team of reflective practitioners that also delivers in-depth analysis and presents research at international academic conferences on topics such as African narratives of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or EU talent partnership policy from the Baltic perspective. To facilitate more informed Africa policies in the Baltics, in partnership with ECDPM and Vilnius University, OSMOS hosts the Baltic-Africa Academy - an intensive annual thematic course for Africa foreign policy stakeholders in the Baltics.