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

2. 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

3. 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

4. The African REN ecosystem – UA
The regional Research and
Education Network of ESA Region
NRENs from 15 countries
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.

5. The African REN ecosystem – UA network
2015
Planned

6. 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

7. 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

8. The African REN ecosystem – WACREN Network

9. AfREN - Current status

10. There is fiber….
Source:

11. 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

12. Lets talk!