1st Euro-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT Research
March 25-26, 2009 - Brussels, Belgium
Event Proceedings

Opening Session & Welcome Addresses

Master of Ceremony
Karine Valin - Managing Director, Sigma Orionis, France & Coordinator, EuroAfrica-ICT FP7/ICT Project

Viviane Reding (video message / speech) - Commissioner, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission (EC)

Vera Brenda Ngosi - Director, Directorate of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST), African Union Commission (AUC)

Abdul Waheed Khan - Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

Keynotes - Roundtable Discussions: Africa-EU Cooperation on ICT: from Research to Deployment - Status & Perspectives

Chairs
Tim Unwin - UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, Director of the ICT4D Collective at Royal Holloway University of London, Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, United Kingdom
Vera Brenda Ngosi - Director, Directorate of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST), African Union Commission (AUC)

Stefano Manservisi - Director-General, Directorate-General Development (DG DEV), European Commission (EC)

Sally Kosgei - Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Kenya

Goundé Désiré Adadja - Minister of ICT, Benin

Sandro Bazzanella - ITU-EC Project Manager, Projects & Initiatives Department, International Telecommunication Union (ITU-D), Switzerland

Phil Mjwara - Director-General, Department of Science and Technology, South Africa

Luis T. Magalhães - President of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Portugal

Maurice Tchuente - Former Minister of Higher Education, Cameroon / Board Chairman of the National Agency for ICT

Afzal Sher - Director, The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER), Sweden

#1 - Roundtable Discussions: Implementation of the EU-AU Partnership on Science, ICT and Space (the 8th Partnership)

Chairs
Roger Torrenti - CEO, Sigma Orionis, France & Adviser, EuroAfrica-ICT FP7/ICT Project, France
Gaston Zongo - Senior ICT4D Adviser, Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA), Senegal

Vera Brenda Ngosi - Director, Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST), African Union Commission (AUC)

Antti Peltomäki - Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission (EC)

Jean-François Girard - President, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), France

Daan du Toit - Senior Science and Technology Representative, South African Embassy, Belgium

Ilari Lindy - Adviser, Information Society for Development, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland

Aida Opoku-Mensah - Director, ICT and Science and Technology Division, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Ethiopia

#2 - Introduction to EC (European Commission), AUC (African Union Commission) and ACP Programmes

Chairs
Aida Opoku-Mensah - Director, ICT and Science and Technology Division, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Ethiopia
Jean-François Soupizet - Head of Unit A4, International Relations, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission (EC)

Boubakar Barry - Coordinator, Research and Education Networking Unit, Association of African Universities (AAU), Ghana - Flagship project of Partnership 8 of EU/AU Programme (Research Infrastructure / Africa Connect)

Harry de Backer - Directorate-General for Development and Humanitarian Aid (DG DEV), European Commission - Support to the ICT Sector in the EC Development Programmes

Alessandro Damiani - Head of Unit, International Dimension of the Framework Programme, Directorate-General for Research (DG RTD), European Commission - Introduction to EU-Africa S&T Cooperation under FP7

Philippe Kuhutama Mawoko - Coordinator, African Science, Technology & Innovation Indicators (ASTII) Initiative, NEPAD Office of Science & Technology, South Africa - Introduction to the NEPAD S&T Programmes

John F. Kakule - Expert, Education, Science, Technology, Information Technology, Health and Employment, ACP Secretariat, Brussels - Introduction to the @CP-ICT & ACP-S&T Capacity-building Programmes

Moctar Yedali - Directorate for Infrastructure and Energy, African Union Commission (AUC) - Implementation of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA)

Thierry Devars - Policy Officer, International Relations Unit, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission - Introduction to the FP7/ICT Work Programme

#3 - Roundtable Discussions: Public Private Partnerships (PPP) - Experiences and lessons learned

Chairs
Tim Unwin - UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, Director of the ICT4D Collective at Royal Holloway University of London, Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, United Kingdom
Alexander Ntoko - Head, Corporate Strategy Division, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Switzerland

Christian Merz - Research Project Manager, SAP Research, Germany

Aida Opoku-Mensah - Director, ICT and Science and Technology Division, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Ethiopia

Beza Belayneh - Executive Director, Bezaspeaks, Botswana

Daniel Annerose - CEO, Manobi, Senegal

Anders C. Pederson - Director, Green Power for Mobile, GSM Association Development Fund, United Kingdom

Fabien Petitcolas - Head of Intellectual Capital Development, Microsoft Research, United Kingdom

Joachim Rix - Board Member, INI-GraphicsNet Foundation, Germany

Valerie D'Costa - Programme Manager, InfoDev

Jyrki Pulkkinen - CEO, Global E-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), Ireland

Caroline Figuères - Managing Director, International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), the Netherlands

Serge Ferré - Vice President, Nokia Europe, Brussels

Gertjan van Stam - Executive Director, LinkNet, Zambia

Kojo Boakye - Programme Manager, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), United Kingdom

#4 - How to enhance African organisations participation in FP7/ICT?

Chairs
Harold Elletson - Member of the Advisory Board, eLearning Africa and Director, e3Communications, UK
Idris A. Rai - Associate Professor, Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University, Uganda & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner

Eric Badique - Unit C2, ICT Strategy, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission - The ICT theme of the FP7 research funding programme: perspectives for 2009-2010

Roger Torrenti - CEO, Sigma Orionis, France & Advisor, EuroAfrica-ICT FP7/ICT Project - Introduction to the EuroAfriCa-ICT Initiative

Paul Cunningham - President & CEO, International Information Management Corporation (IIMC), Ireland - Introduction to IST-Africa

Andy Cherry (S&T Adviser, the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner) and Crispus Kiamba (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Science & Technology, Kenya & CAAST-Net Project representative, Kenya) Introduction to CAAST-Net

Thematic Session #A - Special emphasis on eInfrastructures, GEANT(2) & the FEAST project

Chairs
Carmen Mena-Abela - Scientific Officer, GEANT & eInfrastructures, Directorate-General Information Society & Media (DG INFSO), European Commission
Boubakar Barry - Coordinator, Research and Education Networking Unit, Association of African Universities (AAU), Ghana

Konstantinos Glinos - Head of Unit of GEANT & eInfrastructures, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission - e-Infrastructures for e-Science: GEANT and AfricaConnect

Dai Davies - General Manager, DANTE, United Kingdom - R&E Networking in the Global Context

Albert Nsengiyumva - Deputy Chair, Ubuntunet Alliance, Rwanda - REN Connectivity - connecting to the RENs of the world

Gerti Foest - Project Manager, DFN, Germany - Applications in the context of African-European collaboration

Boubakar Barry - AAU, Networking Unit AAU - Networking Unit views and FEAST

Florencio Utreras - Executive Director, CLARA, Chile - ALICE2: Latin America focuses on consolidation of RedCLARA

John Dyer - Business and Technology Strategist, Terena, The Netherlands - The case for NRENs

Sea-cable providers

SEACOM - Jean-Louis Parmentier, COO

EASSy-WIOCC - John Sihra, Chairman

Thematic Session #B - Panel Session related to technology roadblocks

Chairs
Tshepang Mosiea - Project Manager, Meraka Institute of CSIR, South Africa & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner
Gumede Tebogo - Research Manager, CSIR-HLT, South Africa

DigitalWorld Initiative (Bertrand Loisel, Research Manager, Orange Labs)

Floss Include Project (Karsten Gerloff, Researcher, United Nations University Merit)

Nokia Europe (Serge Ferré, Vice President)

Vodafone Group R&D (Nigel Jefferies, Head of Academic Relationships / Member of the eMobility Steering Board)

LinkNet (Gertjan van Stam, Executive Director)

TNO - Information and Communication Technology (Nicolas Chevrollier, Innovator)

PT Inovaçao (Luis Miguel Silva, Director for Applied Research)

Panel session preceded by the following contributions selected through the Call for Papers

Fabricio Carvalho de Gouveia - Fraunhofer FOKUS, Germany

Marco Zennaro - Researcher, ICTP, Italy

Ezra Mugisa - Lecturer, University of the West Indies, Jamaica

Robert Klapisch - President, Sharing the Knowledge Foundation, Switzerland

Thematic Session #C - Panel Session related to socio-economic goals and applications

Chairs
Santhi Kumaran - Senior Lecturer, Kigali Institute of Science and Technoloy (KIST), Rwanda & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner
Peter McGrath - Acting Programme Officer, the academy of sciences for the developing world (TWAS), Italy & EuroAfrica-ICT Project Partner

Royal Holloway, University of London (Tim Unwin, Director of the ICT4D Collective and UNESCO Chair in ICT4D)

IICD - International Institute for Communication and Development (Deem Vermeulen, Team Leader, International Programmes)

SAP (Systems Applications Product) Research (Jan Eloff, Research Director)

ESA - European Space Agency (Giorgio Parentela, Telemedicine Task Force Manager)

WHO - World Health Organization (Getachew Sahlu, Programme Manager)

Panel session preceded by the following contributions selected through the Call for Papers

Natalie Kimbugwe - Coordinator, Kalangala Information Centre, Uganda

Sergio Carrato - Researcher, University of Trieste, Italy

Evan Duggan - Executive Director, Mona School of Business, Jamaica

Adesina Iluyemi - Researcher, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Chris Morris - ICT for Development Specialist, The Meraka Institute of CSIR, South Africa

Francesco Sicurello - President of @ITIM, Italian Association on Telemedicine and Medical, Italy

Vera Brenda Ngosi - Director, Directorate of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST), African Union Commission (AUC)

Thierry Devars - Policy Officer, International Relations Unit, Directorate-General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission