"Investigating African e-Infrastructure Applications of the Future"

6-7 October 2010, Kumbali Lodge  www.kumbalilodge.com , Lilongwe Malawi

A workshop with the opportunity to discover e-Infrastructures and their applications and to network with those interested in application development.  There is an optional second day to this workshop with demonstrations and presentations of potential e-Infrastructure applications will be held at Kumbali Lodge, LILONGWE, Malawi  on the 6 – 7th October 2010. This workshop is held with sponsorship from the European Union under the EU FP7 project, ERINA4Africa. (www.erina4africa.eu)

Participation is open to thirty participants: please email info@ubuntunet.net. Please note, however, that there is no sponsorship for accomodation or travel. To Register, Click here

E-Infrastructures enable research environments in which researchers globally collaborate and have shared access to scientific facilities (data, communications, computing and instruments).  The coming of the first fibre cables to East Africa in 2009 presented enhanced opportunities for enhanced harnessing of e-infrastructure in sub Saharan African region in a way that was not possible when VSAT was the main means of connectivity. The AfricaConnect initiative will enhance the development of these e-Infrastructures in the countries where it is implemented and also more broadly through their interconnection to the Global REN community. Once AfricaConnect is fully realised, what will be the major scientific applications that will use the network?  The “Exploiting Research Infrastructures potential for boosting research and iNnovation in Africa” (ERINA4Africa) project is investigating these applications. This workshop presents the opportunity to discuss this question and to outline the high priority applications of the future.

ERINA4Africa is an EU FP7 (www.erina4africa.eu ) project with several European partners and UbuntuNet Alliance for Research and Education Networking (www.ubuntunet.net )is the African consortium partner.  As part of the project, two workshops are scheduled in Africa and one in Europe: the first was held in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 Apr 2010 at 09:00 and full presentations may be viewed at http://www.globalplaza.org/spaces/global/events/kigali-meeting.  The Lilongwe workshop is the second and the third will be in Helsinki within the framework of the eI Africa meetings on 9-10 December 2010.

UbuntuNet Alliance is the Association of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in Africa, established in 2005, with the Secretariat in Malawi.  The Chair, appointed by the Association of African Universities, is Professor Zimani Kadzamira and the CEO (Uganda based) is Dr F F Tusubira.  With a current membership of 12  country NRENs, it works to secure high bandwidth Internet connections to interconnect the NRENs of the region to each other and to the Global academic and research Internet and to build human and research capacity.  The Malawi member of UbuntuNet Alliance is MAREN (www.maren.ac.mw ) MAREN CEO is Solomon Dindi (ceo@maren.ac.mw)

Draft Programme

Day One: 6th October 2010

Day Two: 7th October 2010 

E-Infrastructure: Applications and potential in health research and service delivery

University of Malawi, Kamuzu College of Nursing, Lilongwe

Day 3: International visitors visit Livingstonia Beach Hotel www.sunbirdmalawi.com/livingstonia/livingstonia_beach.htm
and depart thereafter!