Whether it will be called a guideline, a roadmap or a framework – all participants during the AOSP ICT Infrastructure meeting held on 14 May 2018 in Pretoria, South Africa were in agreement that a document guiding African countries in preparing ICT infrastructures in support of research data sharing, will be of benefit to all. The one day meeting brought together key stakeholders. African regional NRENs (National Research Education Networks) attendees included Dr Pascal Hoba (Chief Executive Officer, UbuntuNet Alliance), Dr Ousmane Moussa Tessa (Chief Executive Officer, NigerREN & member of the WACREN Board, on behalf of Dr Boubakar Barry (Executive Director, WACREN), Dr Yousef Torman (Managing Director, ASREN) and Dr Leon Staphorst (Executive Director, SANRen).
The objective of this meeting was to help NRENs better understand the needs experienced by collaborative data intensive research projects, and for NRENs to consider future service delivery in support of research data. The three projects represented included H3ABioNet (Prof Nicky Mulder, Head: Computational Biology, UCT & Lead: H3ABioNet), GBIF (Dr Mélianie Raymond, Senior Programme Officer for Node Development, GBIF Secretariat) and Dr Jasper Horrell (representing the Square Kilometre Array Organisation, SA).