IST Africa Stakeholder workshop: we have carried out a successful stakeholder’s workshop following iMENTORS panel at the IST Africa conference, where the audience provided invaluable feedback on the functionalities that were available on the platform, and made several recommendations leading us to develop and introduce several new additions in terms of functionalities in the Beta version.
Objectives
•    Inform about the iMENTORS project (Nairobi and Dar es Salaam).
•    Learn from others re. eInfrastructures and related project issues (Nairobi).
•    Get stakeholder views (Dar es Salaam (primarily) and Nairobi).

                                                              Copyright © 2002 - 2013 IST-Africa Initiative

IST Africa conference in Nairobi June 29-31, 2013

The IST-Africa 2013 Conference & Exhibition took place as part of IST-Africa Week 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya from 29 to 31 May 2013. Founded in 2002, IST-Africa is supported by the European Commission and African Union Commission and co-funded under the EU Framework Programme since 2005. IST-Africa 2013 was the eighth in an Annual Conference Series hosted each year by African Governments that brings together senior representatives from leading public, private, education and research organizations, to discuss ICT, Information Society and Innovation related policy, showcase research results and share knowledge. Hosted by the Government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and Technically Co-Sponsored by IEEE, IST-Africa 2013 focused on the Role of ICT and Innovation in Africa's Development and specifically on applied ICT implementation and research in the areas of eHealth, Technology Enhanced Learning and ICT Skills, Digital Libraries, Open Source Software, ICT for eInclusion and eAccessibility, e-infrastructures, RFID and ICT for Networked Enterprise and eGovernment and eDemocracy. Each IST-Africa Conference provides a collegiate setting for presentation and discussion of national and regional developments, issues of concern and good practice models, networking with peers and identifying potential partners for new research and innovation proposals.
The 3-day programme featured an invigorating mix of business and government case studies, technical and policy papers and interactive workshops. As well as opening and closing plenary sessions, delegates had the opportunity to participate in 44 thematically focused parallel sessions featuring different aspects of International Cooperation, eHealth, e-infrastructures, Technology Enhanced Learning and ICT Skills, Living Labs, Digital Libraries, eInclusion, Mobile Applications, ICT for Environmental Sustainability, eAgriculture and eGovernment and eDemocracy.
Among the 25 members of the IST-Africa 2013 International Programme Committee are Prof. Love Ekenberg, University of Stockholm, Sweden and Vasilis Koulolias, Gov2U, Belgium.
There were over 450 participants from Europe, Africa, Cambodia and US.
Of specific interest to the iMENTORS project:
The panel session on iMENTORS project chaired by Louis Papaemmanuel and with the panelists Björn Pehrson (KTH), Meoli Kashorda (KENET) and Aida Opoku-Mensah (UNEC for Africa) attracted about 25 participants. Suggestions and comments of special interest included: Mapping of e-infrastructure investments done by African governments compared with donor investments, concern regarding sustainability of the database, a third party verifying updates of the database and the system for access and verification should be transparent to the user, the worldwide Chain project (www.chain.project.eu/knowledge-base) can provide information on e-Infrastructure initiatives of interest to iMENTORS.   
The session on Exploiting the Potential of e-infrastructures to boost RTDI in Africa, with an overview of the eI4Africa Science Gateway, its Applications and How people/organizations can contribute to it. Shared by Karin Valin (Sigma Orionis) and 6 presenters/project partners, each one presenting one or two specific subjects.
•    eI4Africa: Overview , Karine Valin, Managing Director, Sigma Orionis, France.
•    The eI4Africa Science Gateway, its Applications and How people/organisations can Contribute to it, Prof. Roberto Barbera, University of Catania and INFN and COMETA, Italy.
•    The eI4Africa Demonstrator Projects, Prof. Bjorn Pehrson, KTH, Sweden.
•    The Knowledge Base of Open Access Document Repositories (OADRs) and How African Libraries can Contribute to it, Prof. Roberto Barbera, University of Catania and INFN and COMETA, Italy.
•    Links between eI4Africa, AfricaConnect and CHAIN-REDS in the Region, Margaret Ngwira, UbuntuNet Alliance for Research and Education Networking, Malawi.
•    Prospects for Extending Distributed Computing Infrastructure in Africa, Bruce Becker, Meraka Institute, CSIR , South Africa.
•    Discussion on Futures Thinking Research Priorities in the ICT Infrastructure Focus Area, Dr. Barend Taute, CSIR Meraka Institute, South Africa.
The above listed persons gave valuable contributions to the iMENTORS project, supported also by the MoU between projects.
Beside many interesting sessions of the conference, discussions were held with some of the participants, information on the iMENTORS project was given to a number of people and contacts were established.