News & Events

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.

• Promotion of international collaboration opportunities must be continued and strengthened. It was noted that in many cases, African communities were not aware of the funding programmes (e.g. H2020) and collaboration opportunities that exist. The EGI Applications Database lists about 50 VOs, which members of the CoPs identified within eI4Africa could potentially engage with and work collaboratively and/or share resources within common disciplines. Additionally, the eI4Africa Project Wall provides a number of current or proposed projects and can help to notify the international community of proposers of the available collaboration opportunities, as well as facilitate knowledge exchange, VRC development, and capacity building;
• Collaboration starts with human networking. Building international (including EU-Africa) cooperation networks is an important step towards collaboration, as was demonstrated by the eI4Africa events, which have provided ideal forums for meeting peers and potential partners. Networking opportunities are the first step for further collaboration, including joint academic papers or joint proposals for funding;
• Efforts should be made to raise awareness of current efforts and initiatives, which constitutes a major gap in the uptake of e-Infrastructures in the continent. The need to promote e-Infrastructures development in Africa is especially important towards user communities, scientific communities, and e-Infrastructure developers;
• Africa/EU e-Infrastructure Coordination and Support Action (CSA) projects should continue to be funded, since they provide for essential networking and information exchange opportunities between African and European researchers and policy makers;

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:

• Emphasise the need for African scientists and researchers to join forces with their counterparts in other parts of the world;
• Continue raising awareness and supporting dissemination activities in order to both communicate and promote the potential of e-Infrastructures in Africa;
• Provide and engage in continuous and consistent programmes on skills and capacity building, and;
• Improve collaboration opportunities and sustain Euro-Africa cooperation.

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 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. Click here to register!

Established in 2010, the FTTH Council Africa is an independent, not for profit organisation and active member of the Fibre Council Global Alliance (FCGA) alongside the FTTH Council Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Middle East and North Africa. 
The work of the individual FTTH Council’s is funded through member contributions, and the FCGA has more than 550 individual member companies, all equally passionate about FTTH.

UbuntuNet-Connect is the Annual Conference of UbuntuNet Alliance that focuses on research and education networking activities in Africa. It is organized by UbuntuNet Alliance and hosted by member NRENs. The Conference brings together practitioners in the research and education networking community, researchers, policy makers, academicians, connectivity providers, and a pool of expertise from across Africa and beyond. In previous years, the conference has attracted sponsorship from leading commercial companies and service providers.

The most important results that iMENTORS has achieved include:

·      A set of (collected and imported into the platform) data about more than 2.500 organizations, 250 projects, 150 networking infrastructures and 350 research infrastructures active in the e-infrastructure domain in the Sub- Saharan;

·      A useful, yet simple and applicable project evaluation and sustainability frameworks  closely interlinked with the decision support system;

·      A GIS-based powerful platform which helps to visualize different perspectives of the project findings; 

·      A community of interested participants built through a variety of dissemination activities in different countries and through collaboration with other projects.

Take a look at the map!

iMENTORS (www.imentors.eu) is an interactive resource, the first of its kind, to contain  information about all known e-infrastructures in Africa in the past five years. Launched for public use and input in July 2013 iMENTORS provides you with the necessary tool to visualise e-infrastructures and all related projects in Africa.

Take a look at the map!

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:

This is the new iMETORS banner on the Gov2u homepage:

Have you used the iMENTORS opendata service and would like to share the news on your homepage?

Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an African Union strategic framework for pan-African socio-economic development, is both a vision and a policy framework for Africa in the twenty-first century. NEPAD is a radically new intervention, spearheaded by African leaders, to address critical challenges facing the continent: poverty, development and Africa’s marginalisation internationally.

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.

Registrations (free of charge) are now open!

Agenda at a glance | Information package | Event page

Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) is the association of the Arab region National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), as well as their strategic partners, that aims to implement, manage and extend sustainable Pan-Arab e-Infrastructures dedicated for the Research and Education communities and to boost scientific research and cooperation in member countries through the provision of world-class e-infrastructures and e-services.

The “e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future” Conference is taking place on October 29, 2014 at Hotel Bloom, in Brussels, Belgium. The event is jointly organised by the eI4Africa and iMENTORS EU/FP7 funded projects and it will be held under the aegis of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) and the African Union Commission.

The conference aims at bringing together policy and research stakeholders from both Europe and Africa to discuss major developments and perspectives in the field of Africa-EU e-Infrastructures cooperation. The main outcomes of the eI4Africa and iMENTORS projects will be presented on this occasion.

Over 100 European and African key stakeholders in the field (from Institutions, National and International Companies, SMEs, Academia, Research institutes, etc.) coming from all over Europe and Africa will attend the event. Registrations (free of charge) are now open!

Agenda at a glance | Information package | Event page

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.

EUDAT is a project funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development and it started in October 2011 with a duration of 36 months.

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.

CAAST-Net Plus is a network of 25 partner organisations from all over Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, working together to support bi-regional cooperation in research and innovation. Building on the activities and outputs of the CAAST-Net project (2008-2012), CAAST-Net Plus aims to:

• Encourage more and better bi-regional STI cooperation for enhanced outcomes around topics of mutual interest, and particularly in relation to the global societal challenges of climate change, food security and health.
• Foster discussion among stakeholders for gathering informed opinion and experience about the bi-regional cooperation process, formulating and disseminating it in such a way as to be admissible to the formal bi-regional STI policy dialogue process and to programme owners.

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.

The AFRICA BUILD (http://africabuild.eu) is a Coordination Action aiming to support and develop advanced Centres of Excellence in health care, education and research in the African countries, through Information Technologies. This project is supported by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT). AFRICA BUILD started 1st August 2011 and will run for a period of 36 months.

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.

agINFRA is an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3) project that is pioneering the connection of Agricultural Data through an Open and Participatory Data Infrastructure. In particular, the project aims to design and develop a scientific data infrastructure for agricultural sciences that will facilitate the development of policies and the deployment of services that will promote sharing of data among agricultural scientists and develop trust within and among their communities. The agINFRA Vision White Paper summarises the project’s vision as follows: “To develop a shared infrastructure and computationally empowered services for agricultural research data that allow for producing and transferring scientific and technological results into effective agricultural practice. A key element is achieving a higher level of interoperability between agricultural and other data resources”.

iMENTORS has opened its data to all unregistered usersin its last six months of operation. It is important that donors provide information about the aid they give. More important though is for the information to be publicly available in a way that people can easily understand. iMENTORS (www.imentors.eu) is the most comprehensive data map on ICT investments in Africa and contains data across a multitude of entities, classified as organisations, research infrastructures, fibre networks and projects.

 

During discussions at AIS 14  in Djibouti, it came out that many African academic and research institutions find the application process at AfriNIC too complex, which is certainly just a perception.
 
Acknowledging the fact that many of us feel more comfortable with a one-on-one support rather than posting on mailing lists, WACREN has set up a Support Team on the issue to boost IP resources allocation requests from academic and research institutions.

Theme: Infrastructure – Innovation – Inclusion

Authors are invited to submit 500 word abstracts for presentation at UbuntuNet-Connect 2014, the 7th Annual Conference of the UbuntuNet Alliance. The UbuntuNet-Connect series of conferences has been held for the past 6 years and is regarded as one of the premier conferences in Africa. This year the conference will take place from 13 to 14 November 2014 in Lusaka, Zambia and will be hosted by Zambia Research and Education Network (ZAMREN), the NREN of Zambia.