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French data firm Studia Inc has concluded a strategic alliance with Senegalese digital consultancy D.IA Advisory, joining forces to scale up the digitisation of civil registration records across Africa. In a region where tens of millions of people remain without legal identity, both companies say the partnership is designed to help African governments build reliable and inclusive digital identity infrastructure.
Studia Inc converts physical civil records into structured, searchable digital data at an industrial scale. The company combines AI-powered character recognition tools with a dual-validation system that pairs machine processing with independent human checks to ensure the resulting data meets the accuracy standards required by national identity systems.
As part of the national EC-MADA programme in Madagascar, the company processed close to 10 million civil registration records. The operation deployed a workforce of over 500 over seven months, spanning nearly 1,700 communes across 11 regions. It also deployed self-contained mobile units running on solar power and satellite internet in remote areas.
The partnership between Studia Inc and D.IA Advisory is structured around distinct but complementary roles. Studia Inc will handle the digitisation and indexing of records while D.IA Advisory takes responsibility for embedding those digitised records into each country’s existing systems, navigating local regulatory requirements, and ensuring the data works within national identity platforms.
“Our expertise is built on mastering large-scale digitisation of civil registration records, with exacting standards for data quality and reliability. This partnership with D.IA Advisory strengthens our capacity to deploy our solutions across diverse local environments,” said Jean-Claude Fioravanti, CEO of Studia Inc.
Abdoulaye Dia, Founder of D.IA Advisory, said, “Our role is to ensure the fluid and lasting integration of solutions into existing systems, taking into account local institutional and regulatory specificities.”
The partnership comes at a time when the need for digitisation and civil records creation is pressing in the African continent. According to a UNICEF report published in November 2024, only 51% of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa are registered at birth. In East and Central Africa, that figure drops to 41%. The continent is looking at more than 100 million unregistered children by 2030, leaving those individuals cut off from public services, legal protections, and fundamental rights.
Through its new partnership, Studia Inc and D.IA Advisory see an opportunity to address the root cause of this gap in civil registration in Africa. At the ID4Africa 2026 Summit in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, being held from 12-15 May 2026, both the companies will present their joint approach and digital identity solution for states and institutions across the continent.
