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Why should African countries invest in developing e-Infrastructures in Africa? The EC’s 2007 Green Paper “The European Research Area: New Perspectives” points out that investing in e-Infrastructures can have significant benefits to a country, as it can enable the long-term sustainability of e-Infrastructures, as well as facilitate both industry involvement and the added-value to society that comes with the technology mix, the diversity of users and the local economic and social conditions. Accordingly, the eI4Africa project brings forward a set of recommendations and guidelines to developers and/or policy makers in Africa addressing the following four topics:

• Emphasise the need for African scientists and researchers to join forces with their counterparts in other parts of the world;
• Continue raising awareness and supporting dissemination activities in order to both communicate and promote the potential of e-Infrastructures in Africa;
• Provide and engage in continuous and consistent programmes on skills and capacity building, and;
• Improve collaboration opportunities and sustain Euro-Africa cooperation.

The above findings are presented in more detail in D3.2 ‘Recommendations for African e-Infrastructure development’ and can be discussed by emailing the project partnership at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The most important results that iMENTORS has achieved include:

·      A set of (collected and imported into the platform) data about more than 2.500 organizations, 250 projects, 150 networking infrastructures and 350 research infrastructures active in the e-infrastructure domain in the Sub- Saharan;

·      A useful, yet simple and applicable project evaluation and sustainability frameworks  closely interlinked with the decision support system;

·      A GIS-based powerful platform which helps to visualize different perspectives of the project findings; 

·      A community of interested participants built through a variety of dissemination activities in different countries and through collaboration with other projects.

Take a look at the map!

This is the new iMETORS banner on the Gov2u homepage:

Have you used the iMENTORS opendata service and would like to share the news on your homepage?

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iMENTORS has opened its data to all unregistered usersin its last six months of operation. It is important that donors provide information about the aid they give. More important though is for the information to be publicly available in a way that people can easily understand. iMENTORS (www.imentors.eu) is the most comprehensive data map on ICT investments in Africa and contains data across a multitude of entities, classified as organisations, research infrastructures, fibre networks and projects.

 

CONNECT is the magazine from the GÉANT community. The aim is to provide a regular update on the project and its vital work in supporting European research, as well as giving an insight into the users who depend on the network, and the community that makes GÉANT what it is.

The May issue of CONNECT, the magazine dedicated to research and education networking is out now!

You can view it view booklet style or you can download the PDF here. Printed copies are also available from  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Louis Papaemmanuel, Project Director of iMENTORS, SU, presented iMENTORS at the IST-Africa Conference (06 - 09 May, Mauritius) during Session 8d: eInfrastructures (08 May). IST-Africa 2014 focused on the Role of ICT for Africa's Development and specifically on Applied ICT research in the areas of eHealth, Technology Enhanced Learning and ICT Skills, Digital Libraries, Open Source Software, eInfrastructures, Societal Implications of Technology and eGovernment.

iMENTORS (www.imentors.eu) is an interactive resource, the first of its kind, to contain  information about all known e-infrastructures in Africa in the past five years. Launched for public use and input in July 2013 iMENTORS provides you with the necessary tool to visualise e-infrastructures and all related projects in Africa.

Louis Papaemmanuel explained how using iMENTORS and open aid data enhances the coherence of international aid. Data acquisition and validation will continue to progress until the end of the project. By the end of the project the interactive system will contain at least 80% of all e-infrastructure available in Africa. 

Africa as a region and as individual countries, is slowly making a steady progress towards establishing national and Regional Research and Educational Networks (RRENs). Although still in its infancy compared to other world regions such as Europe where each country has an active National Research and Educational Networks (NRENs) with established regional networks such as TERENA, iMENTORS database provides evidence for tremendous progress over the past few years.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A paper presenting iMENTORS tool for analysis of contextual factors will be presented at the World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST) under the "Intelligent and Decision Support Systems" section, on the 15th April 2014 at Madeira Island, Portugal and will be published by Springer in a book of Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing series.

The paper is titled "Quantitative scenario-based assessment of contextual factors for ICT4D projects: Design And Implementation in a web based tool", written by iMENTORS team members: Anton Talantsev, Aron Larsson, Florence Nameere Kivunike, David Sundgren.

Image courtesy of sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

iMENTORS is mapping terrestrial networks in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The goal is to identify areas on the map underserved by network operators and providers.  These areas also represent good opportunities for governments and the private sector to invest in e-infrastructure projects. 

Image courtesy of ddpavumba / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The dawn of the final launch of a new and comprehensive database on einfrastructures across Africa is steadily approaching. After a successful initial round of data extraction and recording, the iMENTORS team has now embarked on the validation of the information, in addition to further data collection regarding any infrastructures that are not yet recorded in the system.

Image courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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 version three went live today and is one step closer to mapping the majority of e-infrastructure (resources, tools and data supporting community research and development) of the past five years in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to lay a foundation for better services, encourage research and connect cross-continental progress. 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.

Access and make creative use of the huge amount of data available!

iMENTORS version three went live today and is one step closer to mapping the majority of e-infrastructure (resources, tools and data supporting community research and development) of the past five years in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to lay a foundation for better services, encourage research and connect cross-continental progress. 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.

iMENTORS (also funded under FP7) has been busy recording the IST-Africa project and related FP7 projects. iMENTORS enables organizations to connect with each other, share resources and link their ICT4D project proposal to the past or on-going projects.

iMENTORS has been busy recording and mapping information on all participating entities and the connections between them.  ERAfrica is a new entry!

ERAfrica is an EU-funded project with the ambition of creating a "European Research Area Network" for the African continent.

The iMENTORS project underwent its 1st periodic review on September 9th by the European Commission and independent experts. The project received the highest grade- excellent- and it is on good track to achieving its objectives. The iMENTORS team is engaged with incorporating the recommendations and is highly pleased with the outcome of the review.

Louis Papaemmanuel, Project Director of iMENTORS, SU, presented today iMENTORS at the UNESCO HP-BGI meeting. 

He demonstrated how the iMENTORS platform optimizes donors' ICT4D interventions in Africa. Stream it live: http://bit.ly/tqMX1H

The UNESCO-HP Brain Gain Initiative fosters cooperation across borders among students, academics and scientists from Africa and the Arab States, and helps strengthen research capacities of higher education institutions in the two regions.

 It was an opportunity to meet and exchange with partners (representatives from 19 projects, in 14 countries), as well as with stakeholders in the two regions. The activity served as well to highlight the projects' achievements and to reflect together on the way forward.

We are happy to present you the fourth edition of the quarterly iMENTORS newsletter.Discover more about the project and its related activities with our Newsletter!

iMENTORS goes live and is one step closer to becoming the most comprehensive crowdsourcing map on ICT infrastructures in Sub-Saharan Africa! Register and create your profile on the platform. Do not forget to send us your feedback on the beta version of the platform!

Co-funded by the European Commission’s DG CONNECT under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), iMENTORS www.imentors.eu is designed to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of international actors involved in e- infrastructures development projects and initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa. iMENTORS 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.

Check out the map now: www.imentors.eu/map.html

iMENTORS_Press_Release.docx

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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