The EuroAfrica-P8 Partnership is very pleased to announce that this year edition of the “Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT” (an event designed to anyone with an interest in Euro-African collaborative project on ICT) will be held on November 28-29, 2012, at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon, Portugal. The event is organised by the EuroAfrica-P8 Partnership in the framework of the EuroAfrica-ICT Initiative and with the support of the National Science Foundation (FCT) of Portugal.

This major event is the fifth of a series of very successful conferences organised by the EuroAfrica-ICT Initiative under the aegis of the European and the African Union Commissions (EC & AUC). These conferences have traditionally provided an indisputable focal point for all Euro-African stakeholders in the public and private sectors involved in collaborative ICT research and ICT for development with a specific emphasis on networking-opportunities, knowledge-sharing and consensus-building.

Organised in the framework of the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership (JAES) and hosted by the Government of Portugal through the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC), this 5th Forum edition will mainly aim at strengthening and supporting the development of cooperation on ICT research and ICT4D between Africa and Europe by: i). Allowing European and African stakeholders involved in the development of cooperation on ICT to get together; ii). Allowing participants to exchange views, share information, and identify synergies in order to increase the impact of their activities; iii). Further supporting policy dialogues, apprehending medium-to long term perspectives and agreeing on an overall and coherent vision; iv). Increasing the number of African organisations involved in EU/FP collaborative projects on ICT research thus enhancing the development of Euro-African collaborative projects in the field.

200-250 delegates are expected to attend the event: institutions, national and international companies, SMEs, academia, research institutes, etc. With a wide range of themes to be explored, including e-Learning, e-Health, e-Governance, e-Infrastructures, Living Labs, RECs, etc., a comprehensive programme will ensure all participants are able to develop international, cross-cutting contacts and enhance their knowledge and expertise.

The “2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT” will also feature various session types:

• Plenary sessions (featuring officials from the European Commission, the African Union Commission, Governments, and internationally acknowledged e-Infrastructures experts)
• Presentation sessions (organised around the main conference themes)
• Discussions and debates sessions (offering participants the opportunity to actively contribute to the Conference outputs)
• Networking sessions (aiming at facilitating additional and informal networking opportunities).

The event Tentative Agenda and the Information Package will be available very soon on the EuroAfrica-ICT website. A call for papers and communications will be published very soon as well. If you are interested in being involved in the event as a sponsor or as an associated organization, please contact the event organisers anytime at forum-lisbon@euroafrica-ict.org.

To ensure you keep up to date with the latest EuroAfrica-ICT developments, sign up to our newsletter, join our LinkedIn community and follow us on Twitter

More details coming soon: stay tuned!

The Horizon 2020 EU framework program for research and innovation will build on 3 major pillars: tackling Societal Challenges, creating Industrial Leadership and establishing Excellence in Science. As an essential part of these major objectives is the provisioning of excellent research infrastructures (including ICT research infrastructures). This strategic event will discuss the important question on the role of ICT research infrastructures in the Horizon 2020 framework program: (1) Where are we today? (2) Where do we envision to be in 2020 and (3) How can we bridge this gap in the Horizon 2020 program?

The event, taking place in Brussels (Belgium) on June 20, 2012, is aimed at bringing together representatives and key persons from decision making bodies and Public Authorities at both EU and national level who are involved in the process of setting up, supporting and evaluating European ICT-related Research Infrastructures.

More…

]]> http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/05/02/the-role-of-ict-research-infrastructures-in-horizon-2020/feed/ 0 http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/04/30/bic-workshops-on-international-cooperation-and-trustworthy-ict/ http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/04/30/bic-workshops-on-international-cooperation-and-trustworthy-ict/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:40:08 +0000 Website editor http://euroafrica-ict.org/?p=5950 June 21, 2012June 22, 2012

The BIC project is organising in Brussels (Belgium) two workshops over two full days:

• The workshop on Cross domain coordination of International Cooperation (INCO) is taking place on June 21, 2012, with the aim of: a/. Determining the ways to move forward on international cooperation, and future calls for collaborative research; b/. Forming the current bi-lateral (and potentially overlapping) country to country cooperation into a comprehensive and coordinated global cooperation; c/. Compiling a who’s who directory of agency and research contacts across the countries; d/. Identifying “success metrics” for international cooperation and collaboration (motives and goals, success criteria and impact).

• The Workshop on International Cooperation in Trustworthy ICT is taking place on June 22, 2012, with the aim of: a/. Refining thematic focus within the domains covered by the Working Groups by leveraging domain knowledge, familiarity with context and environment and research experience; b/. Identifying and validating long term common shared research perspectives for international cooperation of mutual interests, aligned with the ICT trust and security research domains within the EU research vision and priorities (FP7 and H2020); c/. Representing stakeholder views to be expressed toward the decision makers (the European Commission and the respective Governments for which they carry out research) in the formulation of enabling and relevant policies; d./ Providing expert advice to BIC in thematic areas of competence and direct the project consortium to material, publications, activities, projects that might be of interest to BIC, its objectives and actions; e/. Assisting the BIC project to leverage its actions into achievements within the larger community of stakeholders and institutions.

More…

The African Network Operators’ Group (AfNOG) and the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) are jointly organizing a two-week event that includes the AfNOG Workshop on Network Technology (offering advanced training in a week-long hands-on workshop), several full-day Advanced Tutorials, a one-day AfNOG Meeting, and a two-day AfriNIC Meeting. In addition, several side meetings and workshops will be hosted in collaboration with other organizations.

The meeting series aims to offer advanced training to people who are in the process of developing and enhancing an internet-connected network with regional and in international connectivity. The workshop welcomes all Network engineers in the Africa region who wish to acquire the necessary skill in IT.

These events will take place in Serekunda, The Gambia, on May 6-18, 2012.

More…

The fourth International Conference on e‐Infrastructure and e‐Services for Developing Countries will take place in Yaounde, Cameroon on November 12–14, 2012.

AFRICOMM 2012 aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in ICT to discuss issues and trends, recent research, innovation advances and on-the-field experiences related to e-Infrastructure, e-Governance, e-Business, and enabling policy and regulations with a deep focus on developing countries.

A call for proposals is now open, and it will close on July 28, 2012.

More…

Columbia University’s Institute for Tele-Information, in partnership with global sponsors from business and academia, will host the inaugural conference on Broadband as a Video Platform – Strategies for Africa at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia, on May 22 and 23, 2012.

This unique event will address the strategies and building blocks for Africa’s deployment and advancement of broadband as a video platform. Experts from the business, governmental and academic sectors will discuss how investment in broadband for video and related services can improve quality, accessibility and end-user experience in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Speakers include infoDev’s own Dr. Tim Kelly and Dr. Brahima Sanou, Director of the Bureau of Telecommunications Development, International Telecommunications Union, as well as a broad range of experts active in the field – corporate CEOs, researchers, regulators, carriers, financiers and policy-makers.

More…

]]> http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/04/25/conference-broadband-as-a-video-platform-%e2%80%93-strategies-for-africa%e2%80%99/feed/ 0 http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/04/04/next-regional-euro-african-fp7ict-awareness-workshop/ http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/04/04/next-regional-euro-african-fp7ict-awareness-workshop/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:04:47 +0000 Website editor http://euroafrica-ict.org/?p=5879 June 13, 2012June 14, 2012

The next Euro-African FP7/ICT Awareness workshop is taking place in Maseru (Lesotho) on June 13-14, 2012.

This workshop aims at raising awareness in Africa regarding the ICT research theme of the European Union’s Framework Programme 7 (FP7) and enhancing the participation of African organisations in EU-funded, collaborative ICT research projects. This will be done by introducing local stakeholders to the cooperation opportunities offered by FP7 and by contributing to the refinement of focused Euro/Africa ICT research project ideas.

The workshop is organised by the CSIR (South Africa) in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology in Lesotho within the framework of the EuroAfrica-P8 initiative.

Agenda and registration form will be soon available online: stay tuned!

The second PAERIP workshop is taking place on May 16, 2012 at the Renaissance Hotel in Brussles, Belgium.

This workshop aims at presenting the first year findings of the project through discussions with an expert panel and EU decision-makers. The event will identify the way forward in terms of policy options arising from PAERIP findings and related support mechanisms in Horizon 2020 and instruments from the Joint Africa-EU Strategy, adopted by Heads of Government at the December 2007 Lisbon Summit.

PAERIP (Promoting African European Research Infrastructure Partnerships) is a project funded under FP7 (Theme INFRA-2010-3.2) and running for 24 month (2011-2013). Coordinated by the South African Department of Science and Technology, consortium partners also include: Technoscene (Pty) Ltd (South Africa), the Association of Commonwealth Universities (UK), ISC Intelligence in Science (Belgium), Sigma Orionis (France), Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (Egypt), National Documentation Centre (Greece) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (Kenya).

Agenda and registrations are available on the project website.

The AfriNIC-16 Public Policy Meeting will be held on May 12-18, 2012 at the Kairaba Hotel in Serekunda, The Gambia.

Hosted by AfriNIC, this bi-annual meeting will be AfriNIC’s 16th meeting and will be organised back to back to the AfNOG meeting. More than 250 participants from ISPs, the internet community, academia, governments and regulators are expected.

The event will be an opportunity for the African and world community at large to participate in knowledge sharing, social networking and policy discussions. Internet development related workshops and policy discussion sessions will be organised, under the following main themes: IPv6 deployment, Internet Governance, Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and Cyber Security.

More…

Hosted by the European Utilities Telecom Council (EUTC) and ESKOM (the main South Africa’s electric utility), the conference will take place on February 27-28, 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This event will provide delegates with valuable new insights and perspectives on utility telecoms challenges faced in South Africa and in the region, as well as those that extend globally.

With the aim of connecting peers in the energy and utility management from Europe and increasingly from Middle-East, Africa and South America, this two-days event will feature educational sessions (case studies and panel discussions) and networking events (gala dinner, coffee breaks and lunches). The following topics will be discussed during the the main sessions of the conference:

• ICT and Smart Grid
• The growing role of IP Communications in Critical Infrastructure
• Benefits and challenges of fixed and wireless networks
• Radio spectrum for utilities to meet demands of smartgrid

The full programme is available here.

]]> http://euroafrica-ict.org/2012/02/20/ict-for-smart-grid-in-africa-conference-2012/feed/ 0