5-6 August 2011
NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Workshop Link - http://nsrc.org/Science-CI-Africa/agenda
New submarine fiber optic cable systems are changing the landscape for Africa's participation in the global research and education network fabric by making lambda level connectivity a real and affordable possibility. By leveraging the existing investments in US-European and US-Asian connectivity, there are substantial benefits for scientific communities, which has created a surge of interest in the region to build research and education networks on both a national and regional scale.
Climate, weather, and atmospheric research is multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary. The land-ocean-atmosphere dynamics in Africa create complex challenges for both research and applications in the scientific community. The workshop seeks to benefit from NCAR's Integrated Science Program's summer colloquium on African Weather and Climate by learning about CI needs and requirements for enabling greater collaboration between African and US scientists.
The goals of the workshop are to facilitate discussion between the scientific community and the network personnel building infrastructure and services to support their work in Africa, enhance interdisciplinary US-Africa scientific collaborations, organize the community input, and produce a report to inform NSF on the scientific enabling opportunities, and to better understand the value to US-Africa science and engineering collaborations in establishing stronger data networking capabilities. Successful outcomes for the workshop potentially include recommendations to NSF on the motivations, needs, and opportunities in establishing US-Africa R&E network connectivity. Sponsorship for the workshop will be provided by the NSF, Google, and the Network Startup Resource Center, in collaboration with NCAR.
Contact:
Steve Huter, Network Startup Resource Center, http://www.nsrc.org/