Three Horizon 2020 projects focusing on e-infrastructures for research and education in Africa kicked off on 1st May 2015. These are TANDEM, Sci-GaIA and MAGIC and both WACREN and UbuntuNet Alliance are partners in all the three projects. Let us go through them one by one:
TANDEM: TransAfrican Network Development is coordinated by the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD) with the aim of supporting dialogue between the EU and African research and Education Networks, with special attention to Western and Central Africa region. The scope is to promote cooperation by exploiting the interconnection between the European research and educational network GEANT and the established African regional networks. In essence, the project is preparing the environment for ensuring the sustainability of WACREN by engaging all stakeholders. It will create communities such as those for policy makers, donors, end users, etc. The kick off meeting was held in Dakar, Senegal on 28th May 2015. For more details, visit the TANDEM website.
Sci-GaIA: Energising Scientific Endeavour through Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa builds on the work and success of the FP7 project, eI4Africa. It aims at creating a sustainable foundation of educational material and procedures for the development, management and editing of Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa and beyond to energise scientific endeavour. In essence, the project will promote the uptake of science gateways; support new and emerging user communities and strengthen science gateways and e-Infrastructure related services. The project is coordinated by Brunel University. The kick off meeting was held at Brunel University on 12th May 2015. For more information, visit the Sci-GaIA website.
MAGIC is not magic as you know it: It’s about Middleware for collaborative Applications and Global vIrtual Communities. The project, coordinated by CLARA, the Latin American regional research and education network, is a consortium of 21 organisations from all over the world with the main objective of establishing a set of agreements for Europe, Latin America and all participating regions, aiming at consolidating and completing the building blocks of middleware necessary for establishment of a marketplace of services and real-time applications for international ad inter-continental research groups which facilitates mobility and the work of global science communities. The kick off meeting was held in Paris on 11 and 12 June 2015 hosted by RENATER, the French NREN. For more information, visit the MAGIC website.
UbuntuNet Alliance is proud to lead various work packages and tasks in the three projects. However, its main role is to ensure the participation of NRENs and Communities of Practice from Eastern and Southern Africa and oversee the trickle down of the impact.