News & Events

According to an article published on CIO East Africa, the rising star and biggest buzz word around the technology community today is ‘big data’, touted by many to be the next untapped ‘natural resource’. But data, like any other commodity, only has real value when it’s refined: in this case combined with enhanced analytics to provide insights that help identify opportunities or develop solutions.

iMENTORS has started to map in a virtual observatory the levels of connectivity, types of networks, data infrastructures, e-tools, and projects, etc. that are currently available for researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
iMENTORS, an FP-7 funded project launched in April 2012 by Stockholm University and Gov2u, is a web-based platform serving as a knowledge repository for sharing and aggregating data on e-infrastructure projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The platform is going live on 15 July.

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A memorandum of understanding was signed between EuroRis-Net+and iMENTORS on 26 June indicating an intended common line of action.

According to an article published on The African Business Review, total external financial flows to Africa reached a new record high in 2012, totalling USD 182 billion, driven by FDI and remittances. there have been two major trends: Remittances overtook aid and FDI for the first time and became the largest external financial flow to Africa; second, Africa’s increasingly integrated with emerging economies.

According to an article published on The African Business Review, there is an increasing international perception that Africa is standing now at a turning point. It has become one of the world’s top growth areas (5.6% per annum) thanks to the structural reforms being put in place and its demographic dividend for the next 40 years.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU), a document describing a bilateral agreement, was signed between CHAIN-REDS project and iMENTORS on June 2013 indicating an intended common line of action. The two projects have a common interest in a close co-operation in order to achieve their respective objectives. This MoU specifies the way in which such cooperation will be undertaken.

What level of connectivity, types of networks, data infrastructures, e-tools, and projects etc.are currently available for researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa? One European FP-7 funded project is starting to map this knowledge in a virtual observatory.

Read more on iMENTORS at the Projects website

Accoridng to an artcile published on VC4Africa, the 2013 Global Limited Partners Survey, released this week by the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA), indicates Sub Saharan Africa as the most attractive market for private equity investments. The study surveyed institutional investors to hear their attitudes toward private equity investing in emerging markets.

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

According to an article published on AllAfrica , humanitarians and crisis-affected communities are increasingly exploiting new technologies to gather near real-time information to prepare for, prevent and handle disasters, even as analysts caution against overreliance on "big data".

 ITNewsAfrica.com announced in an article that Avanade South Africa and SAS Institute South Africa have confirmed their lead sponsorship of the next Innovation Dinner scheduled in June. The theme chosen for this event is “Big Data, Cloud and the African Enterprise.”

Chair: Louis Papaemmanuel, Project Director of iMENTORS, SU

• Björn Pehrson, KTH, Sweden
• Meoli Kashorda, KENET, Kenya
• Aida Opoku-Mensah, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

Copyright © 2002 - 2013 IST-Africa Initiative

The panel will consist of an open discussion on the needs and benefits of enhancing the coordination of donors and investments in e-Infrastructures in Sub Saharan Arica, and will be followed by a live demonstration of the iMENTORS platform as a tool to optimise the coordination of donors and investments in e-Infrastructures in Sub Saharan Arica.

Click here to see the Agenda

According to an article published on IT WEB AFRICA, international philanthropic organisation the Rockerfeller Foundation announced the launch of a new fund, Digital Jobs Africa, to enable the youth in six African countries to access funds to develop innovative jobs.
 
The seven year programme aims to reach over one million people in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco and Egypt, to develop sustainable jobs.
 

According to an article published on allAfrica.com, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said the prosperity of Africa lies in the economic integration of the continent and increased investments in women and the youth.
 
Underlining the need to quicken the pace of integration, President Kenyatta said the economic fragility of the African continent over the past 50 years has arisen partly due to Africa's fragmented markets, which has placed economies in competition with each other rendering them too small to compete globally.
 

According to an article published on Research, import duties, shipping and servicing costs often mean scientists in Africa pay more to conduct research than their counterparts in Europe.

With scientists’ salaries in Africa tending to be lower than in rich countries, it has been easy for funders to assume research can be done cheaply on the continent. But that is far from the truth. Science in Africa is expensive—and the poorest countries usually run up the highest costs.

Using e-Infrastructures, based on the concept of resource sharing across different geographic and organisational boundaries, requires the deployment of Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) in the countries where the organisations owning the computing and storage resources are located.

Africa is experiencing a technological surge and it is having a dramatic effect on education throughout the Continent. Tech hubs are blossoming, new mobile devices and apps are being designed and produced in Africa, by Africans, and Africa’s eLearning market is now the fastest-growing in the world.
 
 

This edition of the iMENTORS newsletter gives you more in-depth insights into current issues in the world of e-infrastructure, research infrastructure, national /regional research and education networks, ICT and data.

Read it online!

Ten African innovators have developed practical solutions to some of the continent’s most intractable problems. Chosen from more than 900 applications from 45 countries, the finalists for the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) (http://www.innovationprizeforafrica.org) 2013 provide practical examples of Africa’s investment potential.

This edition of the iMENTORS newsletter gives you more in-depth insights into current issues in the world of e-infrastructure, research infrastructure, national /regional research and education networks, ICT and data. Read it online!