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Browsing Articles by Author "Fiore, Silvia"

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    AfricaConnect3: Connecting Africa to Unlimited possibilities
    (AfricaConnect3, 2021) Dekkar, Leila; Fiore, Silvia
    Despite the availability of infrastructures having significantly progressed over the recent years, tertiary education and research institutions in Africa are still among the least connected in the academic world, a situation that is particularly critical for landlocked countries. In this context, the AfricaConnect3 project strives to establish secure, adequate, and affordable network infrastructures and offers dedicated services to African National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), as well as builds adequate human resource capacities and expertise within the community and raises the awareness of the role of digital transformation for research and education (R&E). This paper aims to present the achievements and impact of AfricaConnect3 on African R&E communities, as well as advocating for NRENs, by detailing the activities implemented and services offered to R&E institutions in Africa. Finally, this paper addresses the need for NRENs to be better represented in the African digital landscape and understood as part of the solution.
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    eduroam in Africa
    (IST-Africa Institute and IIMC, 2023) Fiore, Silvia; Dekkar, Leila; Aseda, Kennedy
    eduroam is the secure, worldwide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community to address the increasing need for fast and secure Internet connection everywhere. With over 6.4 billion international authentications to date stretching across 106 countries, eduroam is expanding in Africa, where National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are going beyond the traditional campus connectivity aiming at bridging the digital divide. Uganda, South Africa and Kenya are leading the way and connecting users off campus at bus stops, libraries, cafes, and hospitals. NRENs are at the helm of Africa’s digital transformation and eduroam is a tangible solution to bridging the digital divide. This paper is, therefore, a guidebook detailing the technology behind eduroam, the benefits and the challenges for its four main target groups in Africa: users, institutions, NRENs and municipalities. The call for action is to further deploy eduroam hotspots and provide connectivity everywhere on the continent, including remote areas and unprivileged communities where students, researchers and teachers are present.
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    Making the World a Better Place to Live: African Research and Education Networks’ Contributions to the UN SDGs
    (AfricaConnect3, 2023-05) Bowa, Harold; Amponsah, Effah; Al-Kouz, Yasmeen; Fiore, Silvia
    In September 2015, 193 countries came together at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and agreed on a blueprint to create a better and more sustainable world. They adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as ‘an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership’1, designed to be realised by 2030. Since then, governments and non-governmental organisations alike have aligned their activities with the SDGs as a roadmap to making their impact on the development of the global society and also realise global relevance. This alignment has reaped benefits for both the global society and these governments and organisations, which include an increase in global influence and the ability to attract funding from the UN and other global funding organisations. Research and Education Networks (RENs) in Africa, both national (NRENs) and regional (RRENs) have also been contributing their best efforts to the achievement of the SDGs by helping to tackle urgent social issues and thereby creating value in several fields, including education, health, agriculture, gender equality, economic growth, and innovation. Unfortunately, this contribution has been largely, underreported. This paper seeks to contribute to remedying the situation by sharing evidence of the contribution to Africa and enhancing the visibility of the work done so far by the RENs.