ei-africa | At a glance

At a glance

The 2010 Euro-Africa e-Infrastructures Conference

The “2010 Euro-Africa e-Infrastructures Conference” was held on Dec. 9-10, 2010 in Helsinki, Finland, in the framework of the “2010 Euro-Africa Week on ICT Research and e-Infrastructures”:

a series of events held under the aegis of the European Commission (DG INFSO, International Relations Unit + GÉANT and e-Infrastructures Unit) and the African Union Commission with the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy of Finland:
- 3rd Euro-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT Research (Dec. 7-8, 2010)
- 2010 EuroAfrica e-Infrastructures Conference (Dec. 9-10, 2010)
- Technical Laboratory Visits (Dec. 10, 2010)

a week organised by the FP7 EuroAfrica-ICT and the eI-Africa EU funded projects with the support of the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland

Addressed topics

The Conference addressed the whole e-Infrastructures programme (from research networking to global virtual research collaboration):

Innovating the scientific process (global virtual research communities)
Accessing knowledge (scientific data)
Experimenting in silico (simulation and visualisation)
Sharing the best computational resources (e-Science grid, supercomputing)
Linking at the speed of the light (GÉANT)

Event objectives

Allow European and African stakeholders involved in the development of cooperation on e-Infrastructures to get together
Allow participants to exchange views, share information, and identify synergies in order to increase the impact of their activities
Further support policy dialogues, apprehend medium- to long term perspectives and agree on an overall and coherent vision
Raise awareness and promote the use of e-Infrastructures under development, encouraging the emergence of early adopters, of flagship projects in terms of application
Give the highest visibility to ongoing initiatives aiming at supporting the development of NRENs in Africa and their interconnection to GÉANT
Increase the number of sub-Saharan organisations involved in EU/FP7 collaborative projects

Audience

About 200 key stakeholders in the field coming from all over Europe and Africa attended the event:

Policymakers | Senior representatives from Governments | Representatives from international development cooperation agencies | ICT project managers | Programme managers | Heads of research labs | Researchers | IT engineers | Deans, directors, lecturers and researchers from universities and the higher education sector | Managers of NGOs, professional associations, centres of excellence, trade unions, chambers of commerce, etc. | Industry stakeholders | Etc.
Institutions | National and international companies | SMEs | Academia | Research institutes | Etc.

Event format

The “2010 Euro-Africa e-Infrastructures Conference” featured various session types:

Plenary sessions (featuring officials from the European Commission, the African Union Commission, Governments, and internationally acknowledged e-Infrastructures experts)
Presentation sessions (organised around the main conference themes)
Discussions and debates sessions (offering participants the opportunity to actively contribute to the Conference outputs)
Networking sessions (aiming at facilitating additional and informal networking opportunities)

Mobility grants

To ensure a higher participation of African stakeholders in the event a budget was planned by the organisers to contribute to travel and subsistence expenses for some of the delegates. In addition, donor organisations sponsored the event: collected sponsorship fees have been used to invite more African delegates to join the event.

Event partners

The Conference’s partners were organised in three main committees:

Honorary Committee (European Commission and African Union Commission officials / International, regional, and local authorities)
Advisory and programme Committee (e-Infrastructures experts on charge of the Conference programme)
Organising Committee (representatives from the European Commission, the African Union Commission, the eI-Africa project and VTT)

Additional partners have been associated to the event:

Associated partners (associations, NGOs, European Technology Platforms, Chambers of Commerce, etc.)
Media partners (partners supporting the promotion of the event throughout Europe and Africa)
Donors/Sponsors supporting African participation in the event

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