The e-AGE Conference, organized by ASREN Arab States Research and Education Network, was held in Amman – Jordan during 12-14 December, 2011 under the Patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein.

The main topic of the conference was “Integrating Arab e-Infrastructure in a Global Environment” and the meeting was meant to be the launching pad for R&E connectivity and cooperation.  It brought together stakeholders and region’s foremost innovators, leaders, scientists, and business men to discuss key topics for advancing Arab research and education networking

Now, proceedings of such important and prestigiuos meeting are available for worldwide dissemination.

Introduction:

In June 2011, the Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) was born as the association of the Arab region National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and strategic partners, a non-profit company with limited liability (GmbH) and officially registered in Germany. ASREN GmbH aims to implement, manage and extend sustainable Pan-Arab e-Infrastructures dedicated for the Research and Education communities and to boost scientific research and cooperation in member countries through the provision of world-class e-Infrastructures and E-services.

ASREN aims to advance all aspects of Arab research and education networking. This encompasses e-infrastructure network, a range of network support and access services for users, initiatives to address the digital divide of research and education networking around the Arab world, and technological research to ensure ASREN continues to be at the forefront of networking on a global scale.

ASREN builds on EUMEDCONNECT project to develop a pan-Arab backbone to interconnect National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in the Arab countries, which will be supported by a range of multi-domain performance and monitoring tools. A suite of advanced end user services will be developed and made available for NRENs to incorporate into their service portfolios, for Arab research and education community. This creates the pan-Arab ASREN Service Area, a collaboration of interconnecting networks, enabling users across the Arab world to benefit from simple, secure “any place” access to high performance data communication capabilities. ASREN will focus on service delivery to NRENs and to end user institutions and research centers.

Integrating Arab e-Infrastructures in a global environment – e-AGE was meant to be the launching pad for R&E connectivity and cooperation. The idea is to bring together the ASREN, EUMED, GEANT, and INTERNET 2 stakeholders and region’s foremost innovators, leaders, scientists, and businesses to discuss and debate new models of innovation, integration of R&E networks, policies for sustainable development in education, means of knowledge sharing and dissemination, capacity building programs, and region-wide e- infrastructure deployment to tackle today’s crises in climate change, global economy, food and water scarcity, alternative energy, and threatening environmental issues.

The key target is to lay the foundation for a dream of many of today’s leaders towards a global e-infrastructure for R&E based on real life broad inclusiveness beyond any political protocols. Following launching and officially registering ASREN, and building on the success of the previous EUMED Events, and in conjunction with the Internet2 SIG, e-AGE has been planned to present the status and future opportunities to develop Pan-Arab R&E network integration models and beyond to Europe, the US, and the globe at large. e-AGE included three regional events that focus on research and education e-Infrastructures:

• EUMED Event 4

• Internet2 SIG Middle East Meeting

• ASREN 1st Annual Meeting

Moreover special sessions has also been dedicated to specific domains such as Digital Cultural Heritage, Climate Change, Economic Crisis, Global Warming, and Energy.

Downloadable documents:

Proceedings of the Conference (PDF, 883 Kb)

Presentation of Dr. FRESA, Technical Coordinator of INDICATE and DC-NET Project (PDF, 693 Kb)

For further informations:

ASREN website www.asrenorg.net