In 2013, the Shona E-Reader project, now known as MyNatiV, received a FIRE Africa Grant for its innovative text-to-Speech (TTS) E-learning application implemented on a low cost Android tablet to enable children in rural Zimbabwe to learn to read using their own languages. Since then, the project has gone from strength to strength and, in May 2016, the project was awarded a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Champions Certificate for its efforts in advancing education in rural areas. Here, in part 1 of an 3 part series, project leader Ian Mutamiri writes about how you can use Lean Methodology to build strong foundations for your ideas until they become a minimum viable product (MVP).
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AFRINIC's Member Services Department is the first point of contact for many AFRINIC members or those seeking to become a member. In 2015, the department was restructured and split into two units – the Registration Services (RS) Unit and the Customer Services (CS) Unit in order to streamline AFRINIC's services. The CS team deals with membership request administration and service support to AFRINIC members and prospective members, while the RS team focuses on all aspects of Internet number resource request evaluation and delegation in line with the current policies as proposed and accepted by the AFRINIC community.
Committed to Excellence
As part of AFRINIC's quest to serve the community in a timely and efficient manner on all issues relating to its core activities, the Service Level commitment (SLC) v1.0 was published in November 2015. The SLC describes the level of service that can be expected from staff and covers Registration and Customer Services as well as Database and public online services, Reverse DNS, Billing and services infrastructuresIt also aims to ensure that all parties (AFRINIC staff, members and community) have the same understanding of intended goals:
- Simplifies complex issues
- Reduces areas of conflict
- Encourages dialog in the event of disputes
- Eliminates unrealistic expectations
Welcoming new members on board
The New Membership Registration Portal (NMRP) was released in 2014 and provided a simpler and more efficient registration process for prospective members. Version 2 of the NRMP was recently released and updates include End-user fee calculation, IPv6 fee calculation and encryption of documents uploaded.
Dealing with Requests
The department receives around 10,000 tickets in the Hosmaster queue and 1,000 tickets in the new-member queue per year (see Ticket Statistics for more information) and 98% of tickets received each month were responded to within an average of 43 hours, complying with the AFRINIC SLC which stipulates responding to queries within 48 working hours. Further, with its ongoing process to better handle members' needs and queries, the Member Services department has recruited two additional dedicated customer-oriented staff. Additionally, to improve service delivery, the Member Services Team in collaboration with the IT department will implement the new Whois version 2 which will include few innovative features.
Find out more about the Member Services Department and how to become and AFRINIC member here.
Mwendwa Kivuva, AFRINIC's Project Manager highlights AFRINIC's FIRE Programme.
The Fund for Internet Research and Education — FIRE — is an initiative of AFRINIC that gives Grants and Awards to outstanding projects that use the Internet to provide innovative solutions to Africa's unique education, information, infrastructure, and communication needs. FIRE Africa is part of an initiative called The Seed Alliance that has LACNIC's FRIDA Program, APNIC's ISIF.Asia program, and the Internet Society as members.
Read the full article on Circle ID here.
We've just announced that registration for the Africa Internet Summit 2016 (AIS'16) is open and would like to extend a warm invite to all of you. We've put together a list of FAQs about the meeting to answer any queries about the event that you may have.
What is an AIS?
Now on its fourth edition, the AIS is a regional, multi-stakeholder ICT conference which brings together Africa's ICT technical and business community to discuss regional and global ICT issues and challenges. Launched in The Gambia in 2012, the Summit consists of seminars, workshops, tutorials, conference sessions and social events | More information.
AFRINIC-17 Fellows in Khartoum, Sudan
The AFRINIC Fellowship Programme provides opportunities for those individuals from African countries who have an interest in Internet operations and governance to participate in the AFRINIC public policy meetings. Since 2012, 33 people from 23 different countries have attended an AFRINIC Meeting as a Fellow. AFRINIC holds two open public policy meetings every year in various locations throughout its service region.
The Meetings provide a unique opportunity for Internet-related individuals and organisations to gather to discuss the policies governing Internet number resource distribution in the African region, to share technical knowledge, and to attend workshops and tutorials.
Who can apply?
The AFRINIC Fellowship is for individuals representing small organisations, universities, and media outlets that are actively involved in Internet operations, Internet infrastructure development, Internet access, Internet governance or ICT policy development in their countries and respective communities. To qualify for an AFRINIC Fellowship, you:
- Must be a resident of an African/Indian Ocean economy (as defined in the list of economies in the AFRINIC service region)
- Don't need to be an AFRINIC member
- Should have a technical (IT, Computer Science) background or be actively involved in Internet governance and/or ICT policy development
- Must not have not benefited from previous AFRINIC fellowships
Applicants from Francophone, Lusophone, isolated communities, women and those from marginalised sectors of society are actively encouraged to apply.
What does the Fellowship entail?
The Fellowship provides basic financial assistance to the selected applicants, which usually covers the travel costs, hotel accommodation and basic daily living expenses associated with attending an AFRINIC Meeting. Fellows are invited to attend the full meeting week and may also attend any of the associated workshops, seminars and training courses that they are eligible for.
Benefits
The Fellowship enables those who would otherwise be unable to travel to AFRINIC Meetings due to financial constraints the opportunity to attend an event in person. Fellows can take advantage of:
- Training courses and workshops.
- Knowledge-share.
- Meeting their peers in person.
- Networking with the African and global Internet community.
- Witnessing first hand how the AFRINIC Policy Development Process works.
- Meeting with AFRINIC staff and the AFRINIC community.
Don't just take our word for it! Read this great blog post from AFRINIC-23 Fellow Bonface Witaba about his experience.
Expectations
AFRINIC Fellows are expected to actively contribute to IP address management awareness, policy development, Internet governance and/or infrastructure development in the region prior, during and after the meeting. Fellows are expected to attend every session, particularly the Policy Development sessions and will be required to provide reports on how the Fellowship has benefited them, their organisation and community within an agreed time frame after the event.
How you can apply
We open the call for applications around three months before each AFRINIC Meeting and we inform the community via our mailing lists and through social media. The current call for applications for the AFRINIC-24 Fellowship is now open and will close on 2 April 2016.
