e GY-Africa: addressing the digital divide for science in Africa

eGY-Africa: addressing the digital divide for

science in Africa

Charles Barton, Australian National UniversityMonique Petitdidier, CETP/CNRS, FranceLes Cottrell, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, USAPeter Fox, RPI, Troy, USA

EGU 2009, Vienna, 21 April 2009

Population

Tertiary Educationhttp://www.worldmapper.org/

Internet Users 2002

Area

The Scientific Divide

African Situation

Access to the internet is so desirable to students, teachers, and scientists in Africa that they spend considerable time and money to get it.

Many students surveyed, with

no internet connection at their universities, resorted to private, fee-charging internet cafes to study and learn.

Internet Café in Ghana

www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html

孫子兵法

Dawn of the machine-readable Web

Integrative science - integrated data

0 11 11 01 00 00 11 01 10 11 1

Courtesy: Mark Parsons

Earth & space science informatics responses

One Geology

CGI

ESSI

US National Geoinformatics System

Informatics Division

CEOS-WGISS

GEOSS Architecture & Data Committee

ESSI

IUGG

From IGY to eGY

Data access

Data discovery

Data release

Data preservation

Data rescue

Capacity building - reducing the Digital Divide

Outreach & Education Virtual Observatories

Executive: Alem Mebrahtu (Ethiopia), Victor Chukwume (Nigeria), Monique Petitdidier (France), Abebe Kibede (USA), Colin Reeves (Netherlands), Jean-Pierre Tchouanchoue (Cameroun), Victor Rochon (USA), Charles Barton (Australia), Les Cottrell (USA/UK), Arsène Kobea (Ivory Coast), Mohamed Gaye (Senegal), ….

eGY-Africa

• raise awareness (problems and benefits)• strengthen cooperation• influence policy + decisions.

Goal: better Internet access for African scientists and educators

Use the voice of the scientific community at the institutional, national, and international levels (advocacy)

IUGG

eGY-Africa Program

• Organisational infrastructure (lever off eGY and IHY)National groups (use existing networks)Website, newsletter, conference presentations, articles (to share information and raise awareness)Measure Internet performance (PinGER Project)Survey present status, problems, and benefits (Questionaire)Collate policy statements (naming and shaming)and case histories2009 Workshop in Africa (jointly with others?)

• 2010 CODATA meeting in South Africa

Work with related programs CODATA, UN-GAID (eSDDC), IAP, ICTP, INASP, IST-Africa, UN-ECA, GIRAF, …

Visit www.egy.org and go to eGY-Africa

Contact:alemmeb@yahoo.com victorchukwuma@yahoo.comcharles.barton@anu.edu.au

Interested in getting involved?