News & Events

The eI4Africa and iMENTORS partnerships are very pleased to welcome a new associated organisation to the eI4Africa/iMentors joint conference on the theme “e-Infrastructures for Africa: Gateways to the Future” that will take place on October 29, 2014, in Brussels, Belgium, at Hotel Bloom. Click here to register!

Established in 2010, the FTTH Council Africa is an independent, not for profit organisation and active member of the Fibre Council Global Alliance (FCGA) alongside the FTTH Council Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Middle East and North Africa. 
The work of the individual FTTH Council’s is funded through member contributions, and the FCGA has more than 550 individual member companies, all equally passionate about FTTH.

iMENTORS has partnered up with FTTH Council Africa. They agreed to work together to support cooperation in research, high speed fibre connectivity, infrastructure and Africa.

iMENTORS and FTTH Council Africa will collaborate regarding dissemination (sharing of information, events, social media, etc). For example, FTTH Council Africa has included an article about iMENTORS in their newsletter and also published the partnership in their annual report.

Moreover, iMENTORS and FTTH Council Africa will maintain an informal consultation channel to discuss best practise frameworks that is in the best interest of all stakeholders.

iMENTORS statistics have now been completed for all data recorded up until Dec. 15th!  During the last recording period, we added a total of 1398 new organizations and 413 new projects to our database, an increase over the last recording period of approximately 67% and 290%, respectively.  In addition, we recorded 330 research infrastructures - a brand new category of information now uploaded and available for search in the iMENTORS database. 

Is your organization among the new additions to the iMENTORS database?  Check our map today!

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The aim of iMENTORS is to help scientists, universities, research and education networks as well as policy-makers and international funders to gain valuable insights on the gaps and progress made in the region and to identify synergies when planning future ICT initiatives within the African continent.

Louis Papaemmanuel, Director of the iMENTORS project was invited to speak at the Headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, in the framework of the AUC Internet/ICT Week held on Dec. 2-6 2013. The week is part of a series of events organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) / African Union (AU).

Image courtesy of Kookkai_nak at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

iMENTORS has identified and recorded 58 submarine cables into and out of the African continent.  This amounts to over 450,000 km of cable, and over 150 different organizations involved in the funding and operation of the cables. 

The challenge now for Africa is to develop local fiber optic networks to connect these from high-capacity international submarine cables all the way to the home.

Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

According to an article posted by ei4africa.eu, a second version of the Intra-Africa optical fibre network map produced by UbuntuNet Alliance has been published. This follows an extensive exercise carried out in 2012 by Donna Namujju with the help of Steve Song of Manypossibilities.net.

MTN Uganda officially commissioned its fibre network at Katuna Border in Kabale district on Friday, 08 February 2013.

The event, held at the Katuna border post, was attended by the Minister of ICT, Honourable Ruhakana Rugunda, the Executive Director of UCC engineer Godfrey Mutabazi as well as the MTN Uganda Chairman, Mr Charles Mbire.
 
Speaking at the event, Minister Rugunda said, “We, at the Ministry, would like to commend MTN Uganda for this investment that further confirms its commitment to provide support for this crucial sector of Uganda’s economy and further positions Uganda as a leader in ICT. The extension of the MTN Uganda fibre will act as a catalyst for economic development and will support the Ugandan government to further leverage on the existent regional partnerships in the areas of trade and industry”.