TERENA Networking Conference proves its cross-continental significance for researchers, technologists and scientists
More than 650 people from 54 countries attended TNC2014 in Dublin from 19-22 May. 18 percent of speakers and around 45 percent of participants were from world regions outside Europe. Remote participation also increased compared with previous years, with almost 3,000 people around the world viewing live session streams online. TNC is the largest and most prestigious European research and education networking conference, and includes a ‘distributed workshop’ of presentations about the pan-European GÉANT network and research project which is co-funded by the European Commission and Europe's national research and education network organisations. TNC participants include decision makers, network specialists and managers from all major European networking and research organisations, universities, worldwide sister institutions and industry representatives. Through keynote speeches by renowned specialists, many parallel sessions, lightning talks, cutting-edge demonstrations and numerous side meetings, TNC presents an overview of the latest developments in research and education networking, both in technical fields and in the areas of application and management. TOPICS WITHOUT BOUNDARIES Every year, TNC is packed with sessions that discuss a wide variety of topics that are relevant to research and education (networking) around the world. At TNC2014, keynote speakers Jelmer Evers (UniC, NL), Tracy Futhey (Duke University, USA) and Lord David Puttnam (UK) called on the TNC2014 participants to engage with the challenges and requirements related to technology in education and learning, while Barend Mons (Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre, NL) called for data stewardship to be included in future research projects, Stephen Farrell (Trinity College Dublin, IE) issued a call to arms against pervasive monitoring, and Martyn Dade-Robertson (Newcastle University, UK) presented data art. Other topics included ‘the global university’, cloud services and federated identity for research and education. CROSS CONTINENTAL SIGNIFICANCE ARAB STATES NETWORK ANNOUNCES NEW POPs TNC2014 was the event chosen by ASREN (Arab States Research and Education Network) to announce that the first Points of Presence (PoPs) in the pan-Arab network have been opened, in London and Fujairah, in cooperation with the EUMEDCONNECT3 project. Yousef Torman (ASREN) and Ahmed Dabbagh (Khalifa University) chose to disclose the news at TNC because “at ASREN, we count on TNC as one of the most important venues for networking among experts, researchers, networkers, technologists and scientists from all over the world. Announcing our first Points of Presence there gives us ultimate publicity to this unique gathering and opens more avenues for partnership and networking with organisations and people of interest.” UBUNTUNET SENDS SELECTED AFRICAN DELEGATES The growth in TNC’s cross-continental attraction is evident from the fact that, for the past two years, the research and education networking organisation for eastern and southern Africa - UbuntuNet Alliance - has proactively sought to send representatives from national R&E networking organisations to the conference. The TNC2014 delegates therefore included network engineers from RENU (Uganda) and MoRENet (Mozambique). Tusu Tusubira, CEO of Ubuntunet, explains the value of TNC participation to African participants: “Even in the knowledge society, the chemistry of person to person contact is the strongest glue of any community of practice. TNC is literally a global human cross-roads where our upcoming engineers and researchers can build such bonds with people who are passionate about the practice of research and education networking and its advancement as well as the consequent human development opportunities and benefits it entails.”
Keywords
e-infrastructure, networks, research, education, bioinformatics, CIO, ICT,
Countries
United Arab Emirates, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom