Our blog is where you'll find all our project updates, highlights and achievements, as well as other news and events related to iMENTORS
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.
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.
CONNECT is the magazine from the GÉANT community. The aim is to provide a regular update on the project and its vital work in supporting European research, as well as giving an insight into the users who depend on the network, and the community that makes GÉANT what it is.
The May issue of CONNECT, the magazine dedicated to research and education networking is out now!
You can view it view booklet style or you can download the PDF here. Printed copies are also available from
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According to an article published on WIRED, For the first time ever, people can now buy equity, not just products, through startup crowdfunding sites like AngelList. Some in the VC industry have commented that this democratization “changes everything” — especially early-stage investments, in “unanticipated ways.”
But no one’s talking about whether people should invest.
iMENTORS has been busy recording and mapping information on all participating entities and the connections between them. ERAfrica is a new entry!
ERAfrica is an EU-funded project with the ambition of creating a "European Research Area Network" for the African continent.
iMENTORS goes live and is one step closer to becoming the most comprehensive crowdsourcing map on ICT infrastructures in Sub-Saharan Africa! Register and create your profile on the platform. Do not forget to send us your feedback on the beta version of the platform!
Co-funded by the European Commission’s DG CONNECT under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), iMENTORS www.imentors.eu is designed to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of international actors involved in e- infrastructures development projects and initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa. iMENTORS launched in April 2012 by Stockholm University and Gov2u is a web-based platform serving as a knowledge repository for sharing and aggregating data on e-infrastructure projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Check out the map now: www.imentors.eu/map.html
CARDBOARD BOXES are not sexy. But they are useful: imagine trying to shift a lorryload of eggs from farm to shop without packaging. Because boxes make it easier to move things around, they allow shops to stock a wider variety of goods at lower prices. So to run a cardboard-box factory in Africa is to put more and better food on African plates.
The Riley Packaging plant in Uganda is quite a sight. From wall to wall and floor to ceiling, it is crammed with vast rolls of paper. A visitor feels like an ant gazing at stacks of toilet rolls. A management consultant might ask: why does Riley need to keep so much inventory—three months’ worth—heaped idly on the floor? Surely there are better uses for the firm’s capital?
Actually, no. The paper has to be imported. Uganda is landlocked. The nearest port, at Mombasa in Kenya, is more than 1,000km (620 miles) away on iffy roads. Containers passing through customs there face long and unpredictable delays. The factory keeps masses of inventory because it cannot rely on supplies to arrive just-in-time. And “we can’t ever let customers down,” says Ashish Thakkar, a part-owner of the firm.
Ignorant investors beware
This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 313203