PRESS RELEASE: AfriNIC and AfNOG sign an MoU with AAU (African Association of Universities)

[October 2 nd 2006]

[AfriNIC −Cybercity , Mauritius ],

AfriNIC together with AfNOG have just signed a historic MoU with the Association of African Universities. The MoU is the result of a very fruitful workshop about developing national research and education networks (NRENs) held in Nairobi , Kenya in May 2006 during the AfriNIC-4 /AfNOG7 event. The R&E workshop was organized with assistance from the Network StartupResource Center (NSRC), and funding support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Through this MoU, the three organizations agree to work together for African Research and Education Network development. In this context where Universities in Africa are working to develop their collaboration through interconnecting their networks, an active involvement of the Internet community and capacity building around scalable network Infrastructure will play a key role. During the meeting, AfriNIC offered to work with any and all universities or NRENs that are interested in becoming AfriNIC members, and applying for portable public IP address space.

According to the CEO of AfriNIC, Adiel Akplogan this MoU is inline with AfriNIC's objectives which among others is to raise awareness among academic institutes on Internet related issues. He says that "the MOU is an important milestone in building a strong and active Internet community on the continent. We will work with the two other organizations to design workshops and events which will serve Internet development goals in Africa . There is no reason why the education and research community in Africa should be left out of Internet development"

AfriNIC will hold its fifth Public policy meeting in November 2006 in Mauritius where participation of some NRENs and AAU representatives is expected.

Background

AfriNIC: AfriNIC is the Regional Internet Registry in charge of the management of IP resources in Africa and the Indian Ocean regions. AfriNIC is a not-for-profit and non-governmental membership based organisation incorporated in Mauritius . AfriNIC provides services to more than 200 operators from 50 countries in the region. Prior to AfriNIC's set up, Africa was served by three different RIRs (APNIC, for the Indian Ocean countries; RIPE NCC, for African countries located north of the equator; and ARIN, for African countries located south of the equator). More Information about AfriNIC can be found at: www.afrinic.net

AfNOG: AfNOG is the group of African Network Operators. Its objective since its setup in 2000 is to keep its members up to date with the latest IP evolution through annual workshops and tutorials on Scalable Network Infrastructure. The next AFNOG event is planned in Abudja ( Nigeria ) in April 2007. More information about AfNOG can be found at: http://www.afnog.org

AAU: The Association of African Universities (AAU) is the apex organization and forum for consultation, exchange of information and co-operation among institutions of higher education in Africa . It represents the voice of higher education in Africa on regional and international bodies and supports networking by institutions of higher education in teaching, research, information exchange and dissemination. More information about AAU can be found at: http://www.aau.org

Memorandum of Understanding: AfriNIC-AfNOG-AAU, click here

Contact: AfriNIC , press@afrinic.net +230 466 6616