TMN
      Vol.1 Number 1 , Spring 2004   

Technology Management Newsletter - Vol.1- No. 2 - Spring 2004  

Researchers in Latin America can look forward to better knowledge sharing and intra-regional scientific exchanges with the approval of a €12.5 million project for research networking infrastructure.

The Commission will finance 80% of a €12.5 million IT project to create a research networking infrastructure helping Latin American researchers exchange information and share ideas regionally, but also with Europe through its networking grid, Géant. The remaining 20% of the budget for the project called Alice, America Latina Interconectada Con Europa (Latin American interconnected with Europe), will be financed by Latin American partners.

A British-based organization, Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe, or Dante for short, has been awarded the contract to carry out the two-year project. This is not the first time Dante has undertaken huge networking projects of this kind. This non-profit outfit was also the coordinating partner responsible for building Géant, an information technology tool for improving interaction over large distances between the European research and education community.

Alice is part of the Alliance for the Information Society (@LIS), which promotes improved information flow among Latin American citizens in an effort to bridge the digital divide between those who have access to information communication technology and those who do not. The European Commission has contributed €63.5 million towards the @LIS programme, with the aim of stimulating long-term partnership between the EU and Latin America. 

Get yourself connected
This initiative has been hailed as an important step towards expanding the Commission’s dream of a World-wide Research and Education Network, an idea which will be reinforced in the holding of the World Summit on Information Society later this year.

Alice puts flesh on the declaration made during the EU-LAC Madrid Summit in June 2002, which heralded scientific research and technical development as fundamental to better world relations through the sharing of knowledge, technology and information. 

Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society Erkki Liikanen believes the project will provide “huge improvements in infrastructure” which will overcome the limitations international researchers encounter when collaborating. “For the first time, Latin American countries will have the high-speed Internet connections necessary for effective research collaboration,” he said.  

A world-wide tender to supply the ‘connectivity’ for the project will be announced shortly by the project team, which although led by Dante will involve partners from the National Research and Education Networks’ (NRENs) 18 Latin American members. The new networking infrastructure is expected to be up and running in the early part of 2004. 

[Source: © European research News Centre]

Copyright ©Technology Management Newsletter, 2004