Connectivity Providers Database

Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:18:24 +0100 (WAT) From: Aminu Ibrahim <aminu@forum.org.ng> To: Steven G. Huter <sghuter@nsrc.org> Cc: Sunday Folayan <sfolayan@skannet.com.ng>, ayodeji.oluleye@mail.ui.edu.ng, sekyen@forum.org.ng, Evans Temi <etemi@uoregon.edu>, board@forum.org.ng, AJ <aj@carnegie.org>, koleshettima@yahoo.com, Raoul Davion <rdavion@macfound.org>, nsrc@nsrc.org Subject: Re: july workshop in NG- A Prelim Report on Pre-NgNOG Message-ID: <29226.196.1.186.61.1153916304.squirrel@abuja.forum.org.ng> dear Steve and all, On Wed, July 19, 2006 12:00 am, Steven G. Huter wrote: > so two more boxes are on the way, containing a 16-port switch, a 2610 > router w/octal cable and async ports, and an extra FastEther interface we received them as well, steve, but have not distributed these yet. On behalf of the Nigeria ICT Forum and the organizing committee, thanks to the unprecedented support we received from everyone, i'm very pleased to inform that we had a very successful preparatory Nigerian Network Operators Group (pre-NgNOG) workshop (i.e. a modest AfNOG track E0) outing at the University of Ibadan, 2006.07.18-21. Yes, we had the usual African and Nigerian problems (transportation, communication, electricity disruption, etc), and a few special ones. [For instance, setup was complicated as the host institution (University of Ibadan) was shut down by an industrial dispute that lasted a whole week to the event, over excessive taxation of academic staff.] But we solved them and, as a first outing, one is satisfied that we couldn't have done this one better. and because everyone learnt and gained something important from this event, we are sure to do the next sets much better. PARTICIPANTS Pre-NgNOG Ibadan was attended by 35 registered participants from 14 different institutions and agencies from all over Nigeria. as a R&E capacity-building Forum, we are happy with the institutional distribution of participants as, out of the 35: - 21 (60%) were from the six Forum universities; - 10 (29%) were from five other universities, and - 4 were from other sectors: an NGO (1), a private IT training firm (1), and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA, which sent 2 delegates). They were not registered for the workshop as such, but 9 student interns from 4 polytechnics and 3 other universities (who are on industrial attachment with the University of Ibadan and assisted with local organization) were also allowed to participate. i.e. we had a total number of 44 trainees at the workshop. Women constituted 60% of instructors, but only 26% of participants. However, as letters of invitation sent to institutions requested for (and offered incentives to encourage) a gender balance in their nominations, perhaps that is the best we could hope for, given the present state of gender distribution in the institutions and in this sector. The backgrounds of the participants varied very greatly, as they ranged from Directors of IT Centres to student interns; this however, has boosted the confidence of our young instructors. INSTRUCTORS AND TRAINING MATERIALS Sunday Folayan of GDES/ SKANNET led the following four other much younger instructors (all of whom were at AfNOG Nairobi) to deliver the workshop: Mr. Dele Amiere of SKANNET Ms. Binta Audu of UniJos Consultancy Ltd; Ms. Geraldine Daloeng of the University of Jos Network; and Ms. Tarimin Kewa, of G-Web Integrated Systems. We are happy to note that this is the first time that an organized platform was provided by other than AfNOG, for those who had been taught at AfNOG, to teach others and transfer knowledge and in skills in turn. The level of technical, moral and logistical support and donations we received from the NSRC, AfNOG ghosts, SKANNET and the host-university was such that, despite the extremely short notice, we had the complete sets of AfNOG training materials and equipment for this track. Networking equipment donated by the NSRC and that arrived in advance of the workshop were donated in turn to the host-institution. SKANNET made enough copies of FreeBSD to go round, so we left the originals sent by the NSRC to the host-university to enable iterations of the workshop. SKANNET and the Forum also made enough copies of AfNOG 2006 CDs and handouts for every participant at the workshop. We had more delegates and interns than planned for, so the books couldn't go round. The problem was solved (in our opinion, quite neatly) by giving the books in sets to the institutions represented at the workshop in a pro-rated fashion, rather than to the students. In the same vein, one set of books was retained for the Forum library. Given the workshop concept of "doing lucy", this is actually a better way to distribute the books, as they will be available in the IT centres and libraries for the participants and others to borrow and use for a few years. ACCOMMODATION, FEEDING AND FINANCIALS Participants from Forum universities were charged registration fee of NGN 20,000 each (the Forum sponsored two of the delegates from the host institution). Those from all other institutions and agencies were charged NGN 25,000 each. We intended that participants would pay for their accommodation and feeding. But, we had received such support from the NSRC in Oregon and AfNOG ghosts, that a last minute decision was reached to adhere to AfNOG standards of accommodating and feeding everyone in the same place without extra charge placed on the delegates. (This enables social interaction among delegates, organizers and instructors, and reduces time-delays). We were able to make this happen and still leave a positive financial balance, as: a) the Forum and host-institution intensified negotiation, and succeeded in securing a 40% discount on room rates; b) SKANNET provided lunch and tea breaks for 40 persons per day for the duration of the workshop (the daily balance for 10 persons was paid for by the Forum); and c) the Forum used registration fees and grant-funds provided by our donors (Carnegie Corporation and MacArthur Foundation) for this activity to pay for accommodation, breakfast and dinner for everyone and personal expenses of instructors and organizers. Real costs and complete reports are being prepared by the Workshop Secretariat, and we will share these. From the point of view of the students, however, this workshop was delivered at a unit cost of less than $200! SUMMARY In summary, we are happy to announce that the first edition of pre- NgNOG was successful, complete with AfNOG jokes :-) The Forum is very happy to clearly establish that: a) ISP-Univ colloboration works here, as well; and b) for basic training, "doing lucy" (i.e. in-country workshop training, in a univ, without tear-down so there is a continued iteration) is the affordable and sustainable way to go. At the very least, we have prepared some 44 candidates - mostly from r&e institutions- for better uptake at the first edition of full NgNOG, scheduled to hold at the University of Jos from 2006.11.20-25, with arrival on 19th November 2006. And, needless to say, everything we have learned will be ploughed forward to make NgNOG UniJos even more successful and, of course, prepare us for AfNOG Abuja. Thank you all, for everything. aminu