Our blog is where you'll find all our project updates, highlights and achievements, as well as other news and events related to iMENTORS
Editorial Team has not set their biography yet
Presentations of the e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future conference (October 29, 2014 – Brussels, Belgium) are now available via this link!
Videos of each session, including the referent panel discussions, are also available as a complement to the presentations. Please access the Video gallery of the conference.
The full programme of the day is available here.
In the area of e-Infrastructure R&D, the importance of international cooperation cannot be underestimated. This includes both Africa/EU collaboration projects – which are key in maximizing the exploitation potential of EU and African developments – and African cross-continental collaboration – as a way of sharing tailored, locally adapted solutions with high socio-economic impact. It is imperative, therefore, that European and African CoPs collaborate, similar to the twinning between established and emerging NRENs organised by TERENA.
Why should African countries invest in developing e-Infrastructures in Africa? The EC’s 2007 Green Paper “The European Research Area: New Perspectives” points out that investing in e-Infrastructures can have significant benefits to a country, as it can enable the long-term sustainability of e-Infrastructures, as well as facilitate both industry involvement and the added-value to society that comes with the technology mix, the diversity of users and the local economic and social conditions. Accordingly, the eI4Africa project brings forward a set of recommendations and guidelines to developers and/or policy makers in Africa addressing the following four topics:
The above findings are presented in more detail in D3.2 ‘Recommendations for African e-Infrastructure development’ and can be discussed by emailing the project partnership at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
The next e-IRG open workshop will take place in Rome, Italy, under under the auspices of the Italian Presidency of the European Union. The event is planned from Monday 10 November 2014 at 11:00 to Tuesday 11 November 2014 at 13:00.
The opening session will include keynotes by the EC and ESFRI. The three plenary tracks are:
1. e-Infrastructure needs of the FET Flagship Initiatives in particular the Human Brain Project and the Graphene Flagship.
2. e-Infrastructure needs of ESFRI projects with examples from projects in ESFRI’s prioritisation list.
3. e-Methods addressing topics on methods and software in data management and exascale computing.
Each track will include a panel discussion providing ample opportunity for interaction with the audience. The event is open to all e-Infrastructure users, providers and policy makers. The preliminary programme of the workshop, registration and practical information can be found here.
November 24–25, 2014 Kampala, Uganda
Deploying efficient and effective infrastructures and solutions when limited resources are available is a challenging task and a key-enabler for the diffusion of ICT in developing countries. The aim of this conference is bringing together international researchers, students, public officers, policy makers and practitioners in ICT to discuss issues and trends, recent research, innovation advances and on-the-field experiences related to e-Governance, e-Infrastructure, and e-Business with a focus on developing countries.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 313203