The GÉANT Emerging NREN Programme (ENP) is a recent, but significant, addition and integral part of TNC. The programme aims to enable the integration of representatives from emerging NRENs from around the world into the TNC community, to create connections at different organisational levels between NRENs, and foster future collaborations.
Since TNC18 the programme has been bringing to TNC employees from NRENs that would not be able to participate otherwise, focusing particularly on engineering and technical personnel. In four editions the programme has reached 56 participants from 37 different countries and territories. This year, the GÉANT ENP will be held physically alongside TNC23 from Monday 5 to Friday 9 June in Tirana and supported by RASH, host of TNC23.
ENP Planning
At the start of the year, all Regional and National R&E Networks are encouraged to nominate representatives to take part in the programme, in particular young engineers, NREN staff members, or researchers who are part of the community but are not usually able to attend conferences, and who would benefit from the knowledge exchange. Diversity is also strongly supported by encouraging female applications wherever possible.
Most importantly, three ENP candidates have been selected to present a Lightning Talk on TNC23’s plenary stage. Lensa Abera from EthERNet, the Ethiopian Education and Research Network, will talk about their Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS); Katarina Simonović from AMRES, the Serbian NREN, will present her talk ‘Log management and visualisation of AMRES statistics using open-source tools’; and Alexius Chipalamwazani, from MAREN, the Research and Education Network from Malawi, will present the following Lightning Talk, ‘Move our Content to IPv6, please!’.
Each participant will attend TNC23 and take advantage of a tailor-made programme that includes dedicated sessions with RASH. Participants will be paired with GÉANT community members based on common professional backgrounds, in order to facilitate informal dialogue between individuals sharing the same interests. The objective of this pairing experience is to make TNC participation more relevant and impactful, by providing the opportunity to strengthen and enrich the NREN community and build new relationships. Representatives of the GÉANT community also benefit from the exchange as it enhances their understanding of NRENs around the world by listening to different perspectives on needs and challenges.
Leila Dekkar, International Relations Project Manager for GÉANT, commented: “I am really pleased with this year’s programme, and I am grateful to RASH for their support and collaboration in pulling it together. With only four women taking part in ENP 2023, female participation is not as high as I would have hoped, but I view this as an opportunity to focus on the gender gap challenge for the ENP 2024 programme.”
This year TNC welcomes 13 ENP participants from 10 countries:
- Albania
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Ethiopia
- Jordan
- Malawi
- Palestine
- Peru
- Serbia
- Sri Lanka
- Tunisia
For further information about the GÉANT Emerging NREN Programme, contact Leila Dekkar at leila.dekkar@geant.org
