The Africa Internet summit, AIS 2016 themed “Beyond Connectivity: Internetworking for African Development” was hosted by BOCRA (Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority) and held at GICC (Gaborone International Convention Centre) Botswana from 29^th May to 10^th June 2016. The AIS was a combination of the AFNOG workshops, AFRINIC meetings, AFREN and AfricaCERT Forums.

The AfNOG workshops offered a wealth of training courses, workshops, tutorials and panel discussions on many topics including Cyber Security, IPv6, RPKI, DNSSEC, infrastructure, monitoring, routing, Application Development, Internet number resource management and more, all offered during week 1 of the summit. Four KENET staff members attended the AIS. Joy Atuwo Otuya attended the Network Monitoring class, John Seur Saruni the Scalable Internet Services class and Lilian Maina-Chege the Scalable Network infrastructure class. Michelle Opiyo was a trainer for the Advanced Routing Class.

“The training was fascinating and offered invaluable experience in broad and relevant topics. I was particularly spackled by the network security and spam filtering lessons which are relevant to any systems administrator. The out of class interactions as well were amazing as they offered me an opportunity to interact with experienced engineers whose contribution to ICT in Africa and the world is enviable! I would recommend the AfNOG training to any techie who desires to enhance and build on their hands-on skills” Saruni said.

“The summit provided a wonderful avenue for me to enhance my technical skills, network with leading players in the Telecommunication industry as well as experience the rich Botswana culture. I greatly enjoyed my IPv6 laboratory classes where I was able to build up an entire network across the African continent using the OSPF, iBGP and eBGP protocols. The practical exercises helped build my confidence in network engineering. I had the privilege of meeting former KENET employees; Dorcas Muthoni and Kevin Chege who have great achievements and are making great contributions in this industry. I was thoroughly challenged to strive for even greater heights!” expressed Ms. Maina.

“I was privileged to attend the AIS 2016 in Botswana, a country rich in culture and exceptionally hospitable people. It was an intensive one week training filled with lots of hands-on sessions as well as interacting with people from different African countries and organizations that play a big role towards the growth of Internet in Africa. Our able instructors took us through the different open source monitoring tools from installation process, configuration as well as usage of the various tools. KENET uses most of the tools covered during the training and this was a very good opportunity for me to learn how the different systems are installed as well as how they work. The training made me appreciate the importance of Network monitoring i.e. through network monitoring the NOC team can be able to know in good time when a problem arises on the network and fix the problem as well as track resource utilization. During the training I was challenged to be above average as far as my technical skills are concerned and I will definitely work towards that.” concluded Ms. Otuya.

Week 2 was mainly dominated by the AFRINIC meetings. Top of the Agenda on the AFRINIC meetings was the IPv4 and IPv6 discussions. The depletion of IPv4 addresses globally as well as the low uptake of IPv6 addresses across Africa was a great topic of discussion across the different forums that were held. As stated by Allan Barrett, the CEO of AFRINIC, Africa may miss the opportunity to trade with other continents due to the many services that are only IPv6 based, especially in Asia. During the AFRINIC Annual General Members Meeting, board elections were as well conducted.

The AfREN Meeting provided updates from three regional RENs: ASREN, Ubuntunet Alliance and WACREN. These updates also included the EU funded Africaconnect2 project. The AfricaConnect2 project aims to develop high-capacity internet networks across the entire African continent and connect them to the European GÉANT network. This will boost connectivity and as such allow students, researchers and academia in Africa and beyond to collaborate thus advancing research and education. The NRENs were also encouraged to leverage their network to setup virtual labs to be used for offering distance courses to techies in their communities, a model currently adopted by ISOC. The meeting concluded with a brainstorming session on the sustainability of AfREN.

The 2017 Africa Internet Summit will be held in Nairobi, Kenya.