Bonny Khunga, Omo Oaiya, Yousef Torman Research and Education Network Infrastructure for EO Data Dissemination AfriGEOSS Symposium Victoria Falls, 27-29 April, 2016 Bonny Khunga, Omo Oaiya, Yousef Torman

What are NRENs? National Research Education Networks Closed user groups with specific needs e.g. huge bandwidth requirements during specific periods Platform for collaboration at local, regional and global level Dedicated to research and education Infrastructure either owned or leased from telecom and cable operators Different from commodity (commercial) Internet, but use same technologies But NRENs generally also provide commodity Internet to their members

African REN Ecosystem Regional RENs The AfricaConnect Project Ubuntunet Alliance (East and Southern Africa) ASREN (North Africa and Arab Region) WACREN (West and Central Africa) The AfricaConnect Project Africa Union-EU Joint Strategy (JAES) Phase 1 completed May 2015 Phase 2 - Africaconnect2 3 Regional Clusters June 2015 – May 2019 Develop and interconnect Regional RENs

The African REN ecosystem – UA The regional Research and Education Network of ESA Region NRENs from 15 countries Eb@le, DRC EthERNet, Ethiopia iRENALA, Madagascar KENET, Kenya MAREN, Malawi MoRENet, Mozambique XNet, Namibia RwEdNet, Rwanda SomaliREN, Somalia SudREN, Sudan TENET, South Africa TERNET, Tanzania RENU, Uganda ZAMREN, Zambia BERNET, Burundi UA is a Regional Research and Education Network of East and Southern Region of Africa. It operates a Network backbone that inter-connects the various National Research and Education Networks. The Alliance has current membership of 15 countries… shaded in dark blue, the one in light green (South Sudan, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland). As for Zimbabwe, The I accompanied Alliance’s CEO, Dr Hoba last week and we had a fruitfull meeting at the Ministry of ICT, and latter we made a presentation at the Committee of University Vice Chancellors, on the need to have an NREN established in Zimbabwe. We are hopeful that this will be actualized during the very near future.

The African REN ecosystem – UA network 2015 Planned

The African REN ecosystem – ASREN Planned Network 10 Arab African Countries: Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Comoros 12 Arab Asian Members: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, KSA, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen

The African REN ecosystem – WACREN RerBenin – Benin RIC- Cameroon RITER - Côte d’Ivoire GabonREN – Gabon GARNET – Ghana MaliREN – Mali Niger-REN – Niger NgREN – Nigeria snRER – Senegal TogoRER – Togo

The African REN ecosystem – WACREN Network

AfREN - Current status

There is fiber…. Source: https://afterfibre.nsrc.org

Partnership Opportunities Terrestrial Networks Data Dissemination Shared Services Hosted Repositories Science Gateways Horizon 2020 Collaboration Capacity Building There is actual connectivity status in the Region. This is area

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