1. Chris Rohrer, UbuntuNet Alliance
African Gems
Chris Rohrer, UbuntuNet Alliance
I am Chris Rohrer, I work for the UbuntuNet Alliance as a Service Portfolio Manager, in this presentation I’d like to highlight a few

2. UbuntuNet Alliance | Organisation
The Regional REN for Eastern and Southern Africa
Two sister organizations in Africa: WACREN & ASREN
16 member NRENs – region comprises 23 countries
Established as non-profit organization in 2005, registered in Amsterdam & Malawi
Team of 7 people with offices in Lilongwe/Malawi & Kampala/Uganda

3. UbuntuNet Alliance | Network & Services
Providing connectivity in 9 - soon 11 - countries
Connect to Europe: Amsterdam & London
Identity Management and eduroam
Cloud Services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
Capacity Building, Direct Engineering Assistance
UbuntuNet Connect: 2017 in Addis Ababa

4. Political

5. Political | Relationship NREN and Government
Some government not aware and interested in NREN activities, other NRENs are 100% controlled by government
In some cases a country ends up with two NRENs, one top-down, the other one created bottom-up in a community effort
Every country is different, don’t copy & paste What works in one country is bound to fail in the next

6. Political | Different levels of maturity member NRENs
Some NRENs on the level of an established European NREN
Others exist just on paper, no personnel, no funding
Focus on the smaller NRENs Treat the bigger ones as partners that lead the way

7. Financial

8. Financial | Dependency on funding money
UbuntuNet Alliance covers its running costs
Investments mainly covered by one big EU project (AfricaConnect 2)
Additional money as partner in smaller projects where the objectives of the project are not always congruent with our own
Initiate and lead projects that are in tune with planned activities and the vision of the organisation

9. Financial | Prices for Connectivity
Still ridiculously high in Africa: Up to 600 USD/Mbps per month
Networks owned by the government or by a monopolist
Big difference between coastal and land-locked countries
Question of time, prices are already dropping in bigger cities of more developed countries. This will spread from there
Universities often are some of the biggest clients of the telecom providers, it is very difficult to convince them to offer us affordable prices that can be passed on to the NRENs and consequently to the institutions

10. Financial | Banking System
Countries under embargo: No option to send money for services provided
Strict forex control: No credit cards. How to pay when travelling? Buy online?
Figure out creative solutions

11. Technical

12. Technical | Lack of infrastructure & know-how at the institutions
Power cuts, limited bandwidth, no server room
Brain drain: More lucrative jobs in private sector and abroad
Centralize components, only user directory at the institution
Try out new solutions, no backward compatibility issues: User-centric & Self-sovereign Identities; Blockcerts
Centralize components: Hub-and-Spoke, Radius Server

13. Community

14. Community | Relationship with Researchers
Establishing connections to researchers to raise awareness for NREN services is difficult
Communication with ICT department is easy, everyone talks the same language. But ICT department is not the right channel to address researchers
Focal Points at national and institutional level leveraging on existing librarian communities

15. Community | Focus on the long tail
Small NRENs
Small Institutions/Universities
Small Research Groups

16. Thank you! chris.rohrer@ubuntunet.net @chrohrer