Brunel University - UK
The team that will take part in Erina4Africa belongs to the Department of Information Systems and Computing (DISC) at Brunel University. The School is an internationally recognised centre of excellence and the largest Department of its kind in the UK. Key research centres in the department are themed around information systems, people & interactivity, and information & knowledge management. The Department and associates also has major initiatives in e-Health (UK EPSRC MATCH programme, the UK Centre for Healthcare Informatics and e-Health) and e-Infrastructures (BELIEF & GridPP). Much of this work is performed in an industrial setting. DISC runs training events from the UK e-Science National Grid Service and hosts the GridAlliance initiative that is promote and consults to industry on the benefits of Grid computing. Brunel University is also a partner in the GridPP project, a collaboration of Particle Physicists and Computing Scientists from the UK and CERN who are building a Grid for Particle Physics. The Brunel University will coordinate the project and will ensure the quality of results produced. It will also contribute to all the project activities providing its experience in data collection and analysis as well as in the dissemination activities.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica s.p.a. - Italy
Engineering Group is Italy’s largest systems integration group and a leader in the provision of complete IT services and consultancy. Engineering Group has about 6500 employees and 35 branch offices, throughout Italy, in Ireland and Belgium, and (outside the EU) in Brazil and Latin America. It has a global production capacity in 30 different countries (including China, Africa and Australia), mainly related to projects in the industrial and telecommunications sectors. Consolidated revenues of 457,1 million euro for the year 2007, a 7.4% increase over 2006; a pro-forma value of production of 709 million euro in 2007. The Engineering Group operates through 7 business units: Finance, Central Government, Local Government and Healthcare, Oil Transportation and Services, Utility, Industry and Telecom, supported by an SAP transverse skills centre and by its Central Office for Research & Innovation. The Distributed Computing R&D Unit is made by twenty researchers with strong links toward Engineering senior consultants and production directors for technology transfer and requirements and challenges gathering. In the past this unit have executed the ERINA study (www.erina-study.eu) that recently have been used as the basis of the Communication of EC parliament on “ICT infrastructures for e-Science”. Currently this unit is involved in a number of e-Infrastructures related initiatives. This partner will lead the WP2 and will support also WP1 establishing the virtual observatory and the study of patterns and best practices targeting Africa. ENG will also contribute to the success of workshops and other public meetings, also providing information and elements to dissemination activities.
The Royal Institute of Technology - Sweden
The Royal Institute
of Technology (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), KTH, is responsible for
one-third of Sweden's capacity for engineering studies and technical
research at post-secondary level. Our university has over 11,000
undergraduate students, 1,500 active postgraduate students and a staff
of 3,100 people. KTH is a public university, mainly funded by
government grants. It was founded in 1827 and it is the largest of
Sweden's universities of technology.
The Telecommunication System
Lab (TSLab). This is one of the laboratories of the KTH School of ICT,
located at the KTH campus in Kista. It consists of some 20 faculty
members and graduate students. They combine expertise in technology,
economy, social science and social behavioural science. The lab offers
an open and creative environment for research and education. The prime
competence is in developing communication systems from a user
perspective. TSLab owns and/or has access to multiple test beds for
communication, including fibre to the home apartment housing networks,
wireless access networks and long-haul transborder optical fibre
networks, including a submarine fibre connection from Sweden to Latvia.
Thanks
to its wide experience in the field of e-Infrastructures and its active
involvement in the Sub-Saharian region, KTH will conduct the data
collection task of WP1 and will be also a crucial partner performing
activities under WP2.
UbuntuNet Alliance - Malawi
Established and emerging NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa came together in the latter half of 2005 to found a new regional research and education network: the UbuntuNet Alliance for Research and Education Networking. The UbuntuNet Alliance is driven by a vision of securing high bandwidth connections - gigabits instead of the current kilobits per second - at affordable prices, that connect African NRENs to each other, to other NRENs worldwide, and to the Internet generally. It is an Association of Representative Members, these being individuals who have been nominated by African NRENs that have been recognised as bona fide Participating RENs by the UbuntuNet Board. As a regional research and education network, the UbuntuNet Alliance will work primarily with established and emerging NRENs, seeking to inter-connect them via a pan-African broadband research and education backbone network – the UbuntuNet Backbone - and to provide them, via gateways on the UbuntuNet Backbone, with high speed connections to NRENs worldwide and the Internet generally. In Erina4Africa Ubuntunet supports the dissemination activities and the events organisation in Africa and will also provide inputs and contacts for WP1 and WP2.
Zephyr - Italy
Zephyr s.r.l combines expertise in marketing, communications, public affairs and technical web skills to work for clients in promoting innovation, bringing knowledge to market, and developing high value human networks.
Thanks to the experience gained by the team members for many years, Zephyr s.r.l. enters the competitive business world with an extensive experience in managing European projects and exploiting the most promising technological results produced within R&D activities conducted in the framework of European Research Programmes. Zephyr’s team also leverages on its extensive experience working on ICT and e-Infrastructure related initiatives and the ability to build relations with an International Community, especially in South-East Asia, Latin America, India and Sub-Saharan Africa where there has already been some significant headway and strategic ICT ties with a view to new technology, consultancy and research opportunities. A considerable professional reputation has been gained while organising and delivering ICT international conferences and exhibitions, as well as dynamic communication platforms and virtual community building and management.
