Half-Day Research Infrastructures Forum - 18th May 2016
Participants during the Research Infrastructure workshop at Safari Park Hotel - May 18th 2016
KENET held the first research infrastructures forum on May 18, 2016 at Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi. The forum was meant to create awareness on the advanced global e-infrastructures available to Kenyan Researchers whose institutions are connected to KENET broadband network. This is in line with fulfilling its mission of being a catalyst and driver in the integration of ICT in teaching, learning and research through quality cost competitive and efficient ICT services.
KENET, in partnership with other NRENS that partcicipated in the ei4africa project, has already setup various research infrastructures including but not limited to the KENET Certification Authority, the KENET Identity provider and access to the Africa Science Gateway. The KENET CA was acredited by the EUgridPMA in February 2016. Additionally KENET has developed its own research services such as Video/Web Conference systems, eduroam and data Centre services. This infrastructure can be used by researchers to perform research without investing in the costly ICT computing resources. Additionally, KENET has been discovering researchers in Kenya by subscribing to the Scival database.
The theme of the forum was "Advanced Global e-infrastructures for Kenyan Researchers – discovering and supporting Kenyan research champions in STEM areas."
In attendance were about 40 research champions from Kenyan research universities and research institutes plus their ICT directors. This first forum explained how KENET as the National research and education network of Kenya has build the local infrastructure required for access to the advanced e-infrastructures in other academic networks and universities (e.g., high-performance computing and scientific applications and open research databases).
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