Over the past few years, with generous funding from the JRS Biodiversity Foundation (http://www.jrsbdf.org/), the authors have been supporting participation of biodiversity informaticians from Sub-Saharan African countries in annual TDWG conferences. Biodiversity Information specialists from Madagascar, Rwanda and Zimbabwe will be participating in the 2013 TDWG conference. The ultimate aim of the travel awards is to engage more African biodiversity information scientists in the activities of TDWG, including participation in TDWG task and working groups, and helping them to build research collaborations with TDWG members from other regions of the world. We are surveying past TDWG travel awardees (2011 and 2012 conferences) to assess how well these aims are being accomplished. The survey results will be discussed as part of this presentation. An ongoing collaboration with biodiversity scientists in Nairobi, Kenya, which contributed to Nairobi s selection as site of the 2014 TDWG conference, will also be discussed. The 2014 TDWG conference provides a unique opportunity to expand Sub-Saharan African participation and engagement in TDWG, and to develop effective strategies for sustaining this important activity.