[IRTalk] African NRENs

Thu Jan 4 16:59:21 SAST 2018

Dear Meoli,

Happy New Year.

Yes, you are right. I always sensitize ministers every time I have a chance
to meet them and advocate for NREN funding.

At WACREN, we even went a step further by having ECOWAS recognise the
importance of NRENs. We have recently signed a MoU with ECOWAS and we trust
that this and other organisations will relay our messages to ministers and
heads of states. I know for instance that the Commissioner for Education,
Science and Culture of ECOWAS did advocate for support to NRENs at a
meeting of ministers of education of West African countries held last
September in Lome; this was just one week after an experts meeting held in
Abuja, at which WACREN was invited.

Best wishes,

Boubakar

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 2:38 PM, Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke>
wrote:

> Dear Boubakar,
>
>
>
> Your work of 10 years ago is finally getting into AAU / AU policy briefs.
> Congratulations. We must not stop influencing policy for the good of future
> of African NRENs. For example, we must influence African governments to
> finance NRENs without making them government parastatals. They must be
> recognized as part of the national innovation system. TENET in SA is partly
> financed by the South African government and yet it is not a governmental
> organization.
>
>
>
> Lishan Adam has studied NRENs in detail and was even a reviewer of
> Africonnect1 project. I will certainly use the brief to communicate with
> the Kenya government.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Meoli
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *<boubakarbarry at gmail.com> on behalf of Boubakar Barry <
> Boubakar.Barry at wacren.net>
> *Date: *Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 12:50 PM
> *To: *Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>
> *Cc: *Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke>, "african-open-science-
> platform at googlegroups.com" <african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com
> >
> *Subject: *Re: African NRENs
>
>
>
> Happy New Year All,
>
> If I may: Nodumo commissioned the writing of the policy brief as an update
> of a policy brief I commissioned in 2007 when I was Coordinator of the REN
> Unit (RENU) at the AAU. It was funded by IDRC.
>
> The author is Lishan Adam, who is well known in the African REN community.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Boubakar
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 9:12 AM, Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za> wrote:
>
> Dear Meoli
>
>
>
> Thank you for sharing KENETs plans, and also those of the European/North
> American countries. It is so important to monitor, and identify how we can
> make all work in Africa, and the African NRENs important stakeholders to
> work on an African Infrastructure Framework to provide some guidance.
>
>
>
> Re the Policy Brief for Stakeholders: It was shared via our AAU
> colleagues, Nodumo Dhlamini <ndhlamini at aau.org> (AAU Director ICT
> Services & Knowledge Management), which also approved that it can be shared
> for the benefit of all. She will be in the best position to respond. I
> agree that is indeed interesting and valuable reading, having a better
> understanding of what is happening on the continent.
>
>
>
> With kind regards
>
> Ina
>
>
>
> *From:* Meoli Kashorda [mailto:mkashorda at kenet.or.ke]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 2, 2018 3:38 PM
> *To:* Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>; african-open-science-platform@
> googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* Re: African NRENs
>
>
>
> Dear Ina,
>
>
>
> Who is the author of the Policy Brief for Stakeholders on African NRENs? Riding
> the National Research and Education Networking Train in Africa: A Policy
> Brief for Stakeholders
> <http://africanopenscience.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AAU-Riding-the-NREN-Train-final-draft-.pdf>/Association
> of African Universities. When was it prepared? It is interesting reading.
>
>
>
> KENET aims to be in Level 6 while being the primary provider of Internet
> bandwidth to member institutions for sustainability. We openly discourage
> purchase of commodity Internet from commercial providers because it weakens
> us.
>
>
>
> By the way, in Europe and North America, NRENs are already moving out of
> community cloud services (SaaS or PaaS) because of lack of scale. NRENs
> then simply provide high-speed specialized connectivity + access to
> commodity Internet + peering. The research or educational technology
> value-added services are all FREE and funded through research grants.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Meoli
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *<african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ina
> Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>
> *Date: *Tuesday, January 2, 2018 at 4:18 PM
> *To: *"african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com" <
> african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com>
> *Subject: *African NRENs
>
>
>
> During the past UbuntuNet Connect 2018 conference
> <https://events.ubuntunet.net/indico/event/10/overview>, it was clear
> that more and more NRENs are becoming geared to host Software as a Service
> (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS). This can be services such as
> identity management, data management, cloud services, security
> certificates, repositories, and more. See the List of African NREN
> Partners
> <https://www.africaconnect2.net/Partners/African_NRENs/Pages/Home.aspx>
> to find the NREN in your country, and to inquire about services offered.
>
>
>
> NRENs can and in some instances already play an important role in  making
> open science and the sharing of research data (incl. Big Data) a success.
>
>
>
> An NREN Capability Maturity Model
> <https://repository.ubuntunet.net/bitstream/handle/10.20374/69/NREN_Capability_Maturity_Model.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>/Duncan
> Greaves
>
> *Level 6 (Elaborated service offering)* marks a fully mature NREN of the
> kind that characterises Europe, North America and comparable contexts. The
> NREN is richly connected at high speed to many other networks and
> resources. Numerous value-added services are available, such as grid and
> cloud computing resources, user-controlled lightpaths, videoconferencing,
> and federated identity services. The NREN’s value proposition lies
> primarily in these services, since bandwidth pricing in such contexts is
> transparently cost-related. Many institutions will purchase commodity
> bandwidth from a commercial provider in addition to NREN-specific
> bandwidth. A culture of collaboration is deeply established.
>
>
>
> *Levels of African NRENs* according to the following studies:
>
> The Role and Status of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in
> Africa
> <http://africanopenscience.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/WB-Report-Role-and-Status-NRENs-Africa.compressed.pdf>/Michael
> Foley (World Bank Study)
>
> Riding the National Research and Education Networking Train in Africa: A
> Policy Brief for Stakeholders
> <http://africanopenscience.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AAU-Riding-the-NREN-Train-final-draft-.pdf>/Association
> of African Universities
>
>
>
> *More reading:*
>
> List of African NREN Partners
> <https://www.africaconnect2.net/Partners/African_NRENs/Pages/Home.aspx>
>
> Educational Technology Debate: Exploring ICT and Learning in Developing
> Countries <http://edutechdebate.org/research-and-education-networks/>
>
>
>
> *Ina Smith*
>
> Project Manager: African Open Science Platform
> <http://africanopenscience.org.za/>
> SciELO Planning Manager
>
> Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
> DOAJ Ambassador, Southern Africa Region
> <https://blog.doaj.org/2016/09/07/the-doaj-ambassadors-biographies/>
> LIASA Librarian of the Year 2016 <https://loy2016blog.wordpress.com/>
>
>
>
> [image: tp://orcid.org/sites/default/files/images/orcid_16x16(1).gif]
> <http://orcid.org/>  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9710-3668
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
> Email: ina at assaf.org.za
>
>
>
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> --
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