Colleagues and friends at GÉANT have been shocked to learn about the unexpected passing of Dr Boubakar Barry on Wednesday 18 September 2024 at the age of 65.
It was at the World Summit of the Information Society in Tunis in November 2005 that representatives from GÉANT (then DANTE) and the European NREN community met Dr Barry for the first time. In September 2006, Dr Barry was appointed Founding Head of the newly established Research and Education Networking Unit of the Association of African Universities, based in Accra, Ghana. And it was in Accra in November 2006, where under Dr Barry’s guidance the first formal meeting of African NRENs, EU NRENs, DANTE, as well as interested universities and libraries’ representatives took place. Here, we first formulated the idea of a wide-spread network interconnecting African NRENs into a continental backbone and to the rest of the world. Subsequently, Dr Barry and the RENU unit at the AAU supported the creation of the first regional network in Sub Saharan Africa: the UbuntuNet Alliance. Dr Barry himself served as a founding Director on the first Board of the UbuntuNet Alliance. Equally, he supported GÉANT (then DANTE) and our partners in the feasibility study we carried out in 2008. This study led to the first AfricaConnect project starting in 2011. And, while AfricaConnect initally focused on East and Southern Africa, Dr Barry ensured that there was also start-up funding available for WACREN, the new regional research networking organisation in West and Central Africa, which he founded in 2010 and where he became founding CEO in 2013, building the community of interconnected NRENs.
Ever since these beginnings, we worked closely with Dr Barry. Together with the colleagues at WACREN, we increased the dedicated research networking capacity for West and Central African NRENs and the services offered to students, academics and scientists in the region. Bringing the information society to West and Central Africa was Dr Barry’s life’s work and his calling. At GÉANT, we are proud to have been part of his success.
Boubakar was a wonderful person to work with and a dear friend. He was a good man, an honest man and a believer. He was a smart man, looking ahead with vision. He gave stability to WACREN and to GÉANT’s interaction with his part of the world. He was dependable and he delivered results, most often with very little resource available to him and throwing himself with all his energy into the delivery. Boubakar was approachable, with time for his colleagues who had become his friends. He had the best laugh, the warmest embrace and an ability to make you sit down at a table and stay. Unforgotten the many hours alongside conferences, sitting in the evenings, listening to a band and talking about the past, the present, the world, music, books, his garden and the time he was a DJ in Dresden. Unforgotten his moves on the dancefloor. Unforgotten his generosity, his energy, his enthusiasm and the unbending commitment with which he fought for his beliefs.
The untimely passing of Boubakar Barry leaves a hole in our global community of NRENs and we will miss him. Our heart goes out to our friends and colleagues at WACREN and the NRENs in West and Central Africa. We send our deepest condolences to Boubakar’s family and friends.
WACREN has opened a Condolence Book here: boubakarbarry.wacren.net
