ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK IN ZAMBIA

1
ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL RESEARCH AND
EDUCATION NETWORK IN ZAMBIA

• Tamara Bengesai

2
Outline

• Background
• Objectives
• NREN Concept
• Benefits and Opportunities
• Challenges
• Establishment Process
• Conclusio

3
Background- Economy

• Zambia landlocked plateau
• Population of approx 11million
• About half of the population urban areas
• open economy
• economy are mining, agriculture and industries.
• Unemployment and HIV/AIDS serious problem

4
Background- Education

• Run by government, missions and private
• Government regulates
• Two major Government Universities
• Numerous Teaching, agriculture, Nursing and
  Technical colleges throughout the country
• A number of private colleges and university
  coming on the market due to demand

5
Background-ICT Status

• Do not have adequate ICT infrastructure
• fixed telephone lines
• mobile phones

6
Internet Connectivity

• Introduced in 1994 through Education purpose,
  UNZA
• Connectivity by VSAT connection
• Expensive but also insufficient bandwidth

7
Optical fibre deployments

• Does not have a fibre backbone in the country
• But individual companies have bits of pieces for
  their own use like CEC
• Plans to deploy fibre back bone by ZESCO and
  ZAMTEL

8
CEC Fibre
9
ZESCO NETWORK
10
ZAMTEL

• Plan to deploy in provincial centres
• Signatory to EASSy Project

11
Objectives

• NREN awareness with leading universities in
  Zambia
• Establishment of committee to champion ZAMREN
• Arrange with all stakeholders and make agreement
  of how the project can be deployed.
• Research on how NRENs function and their benefits
• Development of a business model
• Write and deliver a project report

12
NREN - Concept

• an entity whose goal is to establish and to
  operate a computer communication network that
  interconnects research and educational
  institutions within a region and provides
  external connectivity to other similar networks
  and to the global Internet

13
(No Transcript)
14
motivation

• Connection to the internet that will provide
  enough bandwidth for research and education
  purposes
• Provision of network technology that will enable
  individual member institutions to interconnect
• Development and distribution of network services
• Sharing of knowledge especially in network
  know-how between member institutions

15
Users of NRENs-Non commercial

• Public universities
• Primary secondary schools
• Research Institutions
• Colleges and Higher Instituions
• Government Authorities
• Public Libraries

16
Users of NRENs-Commercial

• Private Universities
• Industries small and medium
• Private/Commercial Research
• Commercial Education

17
Services provided by NRENs

• Network connectivity services
• Security Services
• Storage Services
• Other Services

18
Why NRENs?

• Economic reasons
• Social reasons
• Technological reasons

19
Work done and Plans

• Spearheading group
• Stakeholders
• Terms of reference
• Business Financial Plan
• Time Frame and Responsibility
• Pilot project
• Awareness workshop
• Feasibility studies
• Familiarisation tour

20
Spearheading group
21
Time frame

• Terms of Reference
• Draft constitution
• Sourcing of seed funds
• ZAMREN formation of Board
• Registration of ZAMREN
• Planning meetings
• Feasibility studies
• Submit final report to SC

• Proposed Meetings with project partners
• Proposed Meetings with government
• Proposed Stakeholder and Donor meeting
• Training of Trainers
• Familiarization Tour of TENET or Morenet

22
Pilot project
23
Obstacles faced

• Lack of commitment by some members
• Lack of political will and support
• Changing of Office bearers affects the progress

24
Conclusions

• Seed fund should be sourced
• Registration and setup of secretariat should be
  done as soon as possible
• Members can offer suopport in terms of human
  Resource

25

• Thank you