IRMA

Hosted by Government of South Africa through the Department of Science and Technology, IST-Africa 2010 Conference & Exhibition will take place in Durban, 19 – 21 May 2010.

Part of the IST-Africa Initiative, which is supported by the European Commission under the ICT Theme of Framework Programme 7 (FP7), IST-Africa 2010 is the fifth in an Annual Conference Series which brings together senior representatives from leading commercial, government & research organisations across Africa and from Europe, to bridge the Digital Divide by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and good practice and discussing policy related issues.

IST-Africa 2010 is also Supported by the South Africa - Finland Knowledge Partnership on ICT project (SAFIPA) and Technically Co-Sponsored by the IEEE South Africa Computer Chapter and Computer Society of South Africa.

The Call for Papers can be downloaded from
http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2010/files/ISTAfrica2010_CallForPapers.pdf

Important Deadlines:
Online submission deadline for full paper or workshop proposal: 06 November 2009
Acceptance decision: 15 January 2010
Final Paper Submission: 19 February 2010

The scientific programme for IST-Africa 2010 is based on an open Call for Papers and the conference language is English.

Core Thematic Priorities for IST-Africa 2010
- eHealth - Health Information Systems
- eInfrastructures
- Technology Enhanced Learning & ICT Skills
- Digital Libraries and Intelligent Content
- Living Labs
- Technology Transfer
- Open Source Software Applications
- ICT for eInclusion and eAccessibility
- ICT for Environmental Sustainability
- RFID and Networked Enterprise
- eGovernment - Secure Services to Citizens & Business

More information is available at
http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2010/default.asp?page=priorities

IST-Africa (Regional Impact of Information Society Technologies in Africa) is a collaborative Initiative between IIMC (Ireland, Coordinator), Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology (Botswana), Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology (Lesotho), Commonwealth Network of Information Technology for Development (Malta), ICT Policy Implementation Technical Unit (Mozambique), Ministry of Education (Namibia), Wits Commercial Enterprise (Pty) Ltd (South Africa), COSTECH - Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology, and Uganda National Council for Science and Technology.

Over 2008 - 2009 with support from DG Information Society and Media under FP7, IST-Africa will focus on raising wider awareness of African research capacity, promote participation of African organizations in the ICT Theme of FP7 (FP7-ICT) and identify co-operation opportunities in fields of mutual interest. The goal is to increase visibility of mutual RTD potential and network relevant European and African stakeholders.

Disaster Workshop 2009 @ ISCRAM - Joint event IRMA/SAHANA

On May 10th 2009, more than 20 open source software and disaster management researchers and experts, met in Gothenburg, Sweden, to discuss potential disaster management strategies and applications; and to elaborate potential synergies between the Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System and Integrated Risk Management for Africa project (IRMA).

Presentation of Mozambique flood scenario

The introduction of Sahana functionalities and lessons learnt from the various deployments as well as the presentation of IRMA’s Mozambique ﬂoods application scenario steered an intensive discussion among the participants, notably on the subjects of community building and deployment, of inventories and white boards, of GIS functionalitie, etc.

More information can be found in the report of the workshop.

IRMA training session in February 2009

IRMA held a training session in Brussels, in Cisco premises, on 23-27th February 2009. The session counted more than 35 participants, coming from the partners countries in Europe and Africa. A number of courses were organised:

- presentations of the SSE (Service Support Environment, developed for ESA) to be used by the IRMA platform to integrate various web services used in the pre-disaster phases;

- training on IP and wireless sensor networks (by Archrock) and on sensor web;

- presentation and training on GeoNetwork;

- tutorial on IPv6.

In parallel to the training session, the project General Assembly, together with technical management meetings, notably on users requirements, took place.

The next training session and General Assembly is planned in South Africa in late autumn 2009.

IRMA Newsletter - March issue

IRMA monthly newsletter targets first the project consortium, maintaining the communication active between partners, updating on recent progress made, on events, etc. It is thus intended as a tool for coordination first but it may eventually evolve towards a vehicle for dissemination outside IRMA project.

Click on image to download full March issue.

IRMA project presentation on PSC-Europe Forum

IRMA project was presented during the meeting of PSC Forum Europe in Valabre on 2nd of December 2008. It was a very succesful presentation, highly appreciated by the participants. Here are some snapshots of these events.

Irma presentation

Recent events in Europe and other parts of the world have again demonstrated the need for the effective and timely exchange of accurate, up to date and intelligible information between all those involved in and responding to accidents and disasters.

This requirement applies both during major emergencies and day to day operations and is vital in cross border co-operation.

The diversity of current technologies and the speed with which enhanced and new technologies are emerging, can impact on the ability to achieve this goal effectively. It is therefore imperative that new systems be carefully evaluated against clearly defined requirement criteria.

Consolidation, at international level, of requirements formulated by each of the stakeholders, is an essential goal of the project in order to lay the ground for possible solutions.

The project PSC Europe focuses on establishing and maintaining a Forum for regular exchange of ideas, information, experiences and best practices, and on seeking agreement among participating stakeholders.

Click here to download the PSC Europe factsheet and view the project presentations.

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