The eI4Africa and iMENTORS partnerships are very pleased to welcome a new associated organisation to the eI4Africa/iMentors joint conference on the theme “e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future” that will take place on October 29, 2014, in Brussels, Belgium, at Hotel Bloom.

AfricaConnect project aims to establish a high-capacity Internet network for research and education in Southern and Eastern Africa to provide the region with a gateway to global research collaboration. AfricaConnect builds on the roadmap prepared by the FEAST study. The project, which lasts four years, began in May 2011, and consists of two phases, the first of which is for the planning and procurement of the network, and the second is its operation.

In particular, AfricaConnect aims to:

• Foster the development of cooperative research programmes between the European and the African research and education communities;
• Provide infrastructure that supports the development and deployment of the applications exploiting work done in Europe regarding the Information Society;
• Support the fulfilment of the region’s Millennium Development Goals;
• Develop staff capacity at all levels in the existing African NRENs, duly taking into account their immediate needs. Due to the low internet penetration, there is a great lack of skilled technical, operational and managerial staff available in the region;
• Open up the research activities in the region and build co-operation with researchers in the rest of the world. Specific research application areas cover the fields of: Health, Climate, Agriculture, Education and Environment

The AfricaConnect project is a collaboration between 20 project partners. It is coordinated by DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe) and partnered by the UbuntuNet Alliance, representing the NRENs of East and Southern Africa (DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), European NRENs (Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal) and WACREN, the West and Central Africa regional REN representing the emerging west and central African NRENs.

More information about AfricaConnect here.