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The arrival of undersea cables along the coasts of Africa over the last decade, combined with increased investment in national fiber backbones, has expedited the development of NRENs across the African continent. According to a World Bank report, there are now more than 15 NRENs operating in Africa and a dozen more in an advanced planning stage. In addition, recent investments have been made by governments and NGOs to use this new infrastructure to help connect researchers around the world to their colleagues in Africa. As part of its International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program, the US National Science Foundation is funding transatlantic bandwidth, targeted training, and pro-active application engagement in support of science collaborations in Africa. Similarly, the European Commission, via GEANT¹s AfricaConnect2 project, is providing support for the development of high-capacity internet networks and services for research and education across Africa. This increased support is helping improve connectivity for existing science collaborations while also enabling new collaborations to take advantage of the growing Research and Education infrastructure. This session will highlight how the global R & E networking community is working together to strengthen and support NRENs and research in Africa. Speakers will include IRNC PIs, representatives from GEANT, and African REN partners (Ubuntunet Alliance, WACREN, ASREN). Speakers will provide infrastructure updates, lessons learned from human capacity building workshops, reports on researcher engagement, and answer questions about current and future efforts. We will also highlight some of the challenges African NRENs and researchers working in Africa face and lead a discussion on how we can work together to begin addressing some of these challenges. 

Americas Africa Research and eduCation Lightpaths (AARCLight) is a project, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to conduct a feasibility study for the planning, designing, and defining a strategy for high capacity research and education network connectivity between the U.S. and West Africa. We propose to report on the findings from year 1 of the study. The study focuses on the following four areas of inquiry: The planned availability of submarine cable capacity in the South Atlantic for use by R&E communities; the demand for network services between the U.S. and West Africa by the R&E communities; the coordination of efforts by the U.S., nations of Africa, and Brazil to coordinate planning efforts to strategically make use of the offered network capacity towards serving the broadest communities of interest in research and education; and the planned activities for human capacity development in Angola and nations of west Africa for the effective use of the inter-regional network capacity to support the inter-regional R&E communities. 

Higher education and research science is being conducted in an era of information abundance. Sharing educational resources (e.g. Libraries, Curriculums, Online courses) and science resources, such as data commons, instrumentation, technology, and best practices, across national borders, can promote expanded global education goals and scientific inquiry and has the potential to advance discovery. Providing robust diverse Research and Education Networks (RENs) linking the U.S., Brazil (S. America) and African researcher and education communities is an increasingly strategic priority. Africa has developed research and education communities with unique biological, environmental, geological, anthropological, and cultural resources. Research challenges in atmospheric and geosciences, materials sciences, tropical diseases, biology, astronomy, and other disciplines will benefit by enhancing the technological and social connections between the research and education communities of these three continents via a S. Atlantic route to complement the existing North Atlantic routes via Europe. This paper will discuss the availability of new submarine cable spectrum for RENs via SACS between Luanda, Angola and Fortaleza, Brazil and the Monet cable between Fortaleza and Florida in the U.S. for use by research and education communities. This new infrastructure creates an unprecedented opportunity for the stakeholders to coordinate planning efforts to strategically make use of the offered spectrum towards serving the broadest communities of interest in research and education. The new links will be a foundational layer for the employment of R&E networks outfitted with leading edge technologies (e.g. Science DMZ, SDN, SDX, cybersecurity etc.). The paper seeks to leverage a discussion of opportunities for a new R&E Exchange point at Luanda, Angola, other connectivity options, and to further promote discussion and identify synergies with UbuntuNet members. Florida International University and AmLight consortium partners are planning, designing, and defining a strategy for high capacity connectivity research and education network connectivity between the US and Southwest Africa, called Americas Africa Research and eduCation Lightpaths (AARCLight). Furthermore, the other “end” of the SACS cable is being connected to an Open Fortaleza R&E Exchange point in Brazil. The new academic exchange point, South Atlantic Crossroads (SAX), is managed by Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), where AmLight connects and continues on the Monet spectrum to Boca Raton Miami Florida. Having the transport service opened in Fortaleza will allow RENs from South America to collaborate with partners in Africa with significantly less delay, (at least 150ms lower) than using the current paths available. Interactive high-resolution video and big data applications will benefit from the establishment of the SAX international exchange point in Fortaleza. 

Higher education and research science is being conducted in an era of information abundance. Sharing educational resources (e.g. Libraries, Curriculums, Online courses) and science resources, such as data commons, instrumentation, technology, and best practices, across national borders, can promote expanded global education goals and scientific inquiry and has the potential to advance discovery. Providing robust diverse Research and Education Networks (RENs) linking the U.S., Brazil (S. America) and African researcher and education communities is an increasingly strategic priority. Africa has developed research and education communities with unique biological, environmental, geological, anthropological, and cultural resources. Research challenges in atmospheric and geosciences, materials sciences, tropical diseases, biology, astronomy, and other disciplines will benefit by enhancing the technological and social connections between the research and education communities of these three continents via an S. Atlantic route to complement the existing North Atlantic routes via Europe. This paper will discuss the availability of new submarine cable spectrum for RENs via SACS between Luanda, Angola and Fortaleza, Brazil and the Monet cable between Fortaleza and Florida in the U.S. for use by research and education communities. This new infrastructure creates an unprecedented opportunity for the stakeholders to coordinate planning efforts to strategically make use of the offered spectrum towards serving the broadest communities of interest in research and education. The new links will be a foundational layer for the employment of R&E networks outfitted with leading-edge technologies (e.g. Science DMZ, SDN, SDX, cybersecurity etc.). The paper seeks to leverage a discussion of opportunities for a new R&E Exchange point at Luanda, Angola, other connectivity options, and to further promote discussion and identify synergies with UbuntuNet members. Florida International University and AmLight consortium partners are planning, designing, and defining a strategy for high capacity connectivity research and education network connectivity between the US and Southwest Africa, called Americas Africa Research and eduCation Lightpaths (AARCLight). Furthermore, the other “end” of the SACS cable is being connected to an Open Fortaleza R&E Exchange point in Brazil. The new academic exchange point, South Atlantic Crossroads (SAX), is managed by Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), where AmLight connects and continues on the Monet spectrum to Boca Raton Miami Florida. Having the transport service opened in Fortaleza will allow RENs from South America to collaborate with partners in Africa with significantly less delay, (at least 150ms lower) than using the current paths available. Interactive high-resolution video and big data applications will benefit from the establishment of the SAX international exchange point in Fortaleza.