Words: Hastings Ndebvu, UbuntuNet Alliance
Eastern and Southern African and Latin American Regional Research and Education Networks UbuntuNet Alliance and RedCLARA opened a new era of collaboration between them on Thursday, 3rd September 2020 when they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that is expected to open up research and collaboration opportunities between the two entities and their member institutions.
UbuntuNet Alliance CEO Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka and his RedCLARA Counterpart Luis Eliecer Cadenas virtually formalized the agreement during the closing session of RedCLARA’s annual conference, TICAL2020 which was held online from Monday, 31st August to Thursday, 3rd August 2020.
The MoU opens up many exciting possibilities and joint projects that are going to ease research and collaboration between students and researchers from the two networks whose interaction has been limited due to the absence of a working arrangement such as the MoU.
Speaking during the unveiling of the MoU, Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka hinted that the MoU will herald a new chapter in the history of the two organizations.
“UbuntuNet Allliance has been closely working with sister organizations such as WACREN in West and Central Africa, ASREN in North Africa , GEANT in Europe and Internet2 in North America. This MoU takes us closer to our aim of integrating ourselves into the global research and education community as we will now add RedCLARA to our list of partners. With this MoU, we will be able to exchange knowledge, ideas, services and cutting edge technologies which are mutually beneficial to our end users. We are excited to sign this MoU with RedCLARA today.”
On his part Luis Elecer Cadenas said the MoU is a sign of RedCLARAs determination to strengthen its relationship with the global NREN community.
