AFRINIC-29 kick-started today.
I attended the newcomers session in the morning and an induction session in the late afternoon that was reserved for fellows.
In the afternoon though, several presentations ran concurrently in the various rooms at the Cesar Expo Center at Diar Lemdina, Yasmine Hammamet.
I am going write about some lesser known AFRINIC programmes/grants/awards which I learned about during the newcomers session.
In my blog post of last night, I wrote about the AFRINIC Fellowship, a programme through which I came to Tunisia to attend the bi-anually AFRINIC meeting. Let’s have a look at some key information about the Fellowship programme.
To qualify for the AFRINIC Fellowship, an applicant;
- must be a resident of an African nation,
- should not be an AFRINIC member,
- should have a technical (IT, Computer Science) background,
- must not have benefited from previous AFRINIC fellowships,
- must be willing to report on how this fellowship has benefited him/her, his/her organization or country, within an agreed time frame.
The Fellowship includes:
- assistance with round-trip airfare to the meeting venue,
- hotel accommodation for the duration of the AFRINIC Plenary sessions, from the day before the beginning of the Plenary to the last day of the event,
- a per diem allowance
The aim of the fellowship programme is to allow individuals come to an AFRINIC meeting and take back the gathered knowledge/experience to their respective countries and help the community grow.
Fund for Internet Research and Education (FIRE) Grants & Awards
The FIRE Grants and Awards is a joint initiative by LACNIC, APNIC and AFRINIC through the Seed Alliance. The latter alliance was formed in 2012 after having received a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and contributions from the three RIRs of the Global South.
I took the above image depicting the global north/south from the 60 Sec Guide to the Global North/South Divide by the Royal Geographical Society.
Each RIR of the global south provides funds from the Seed Alliance through grant schemes in their respective regions. For the region of Africa and Indian Ocean, FIRE Africa was set up.
FIRE Grant
FIRE Africa grant is given to African-based organizations; which can be public, private, academic, research oriented, or non-government. Individuals can’t apply for this grant. More about this can be found at fireafrica.org/grant.
FIRE Award
FIRE Award is given to an organization for a well executed project in the field of Information and Communication Technologies and having a proven impact on the region’s social and economic development. More about the winning criteria can be found at fireafrica.org/awards.