Season 3 of ngNOG Summit Holds November

he 3rd edition of the Nigerian Network Operators Group (ngNOG) workshop and meetings holds between 17th and 25th November, 2008 at the University of Lagos.
Charles Uwadia, president, Nigeria Computer Society at a press conference last week to announce the event, said it is aimed at building capacity and exchanging technical knowledge by way of workshop and meetings, ending with a conference dedicated to the application of technology to promote research and learning in Nigeria; even as he said that this year’s edition will feature an exhibition which will run alongside the conference affording the community and related ICT service providers, the opportunity to showcase their products.
In his opening remarks, he noted that effective teaching, proper research and development cannot be achieved without the application of information and communication technology; adding that political will, commitment, conducive environment/good infrastructure, adequate funding and manpower are also necessary to realize that.
“The ngNOG is a good example of public/private partnership committed to the development of ICT on the Nigerian campuses. The community is driven by higher education and largely drawn from technical and administrative personnel in the networking and ICT departments of tertiary institutions,” Uwadia said.
He further stated that private sector partners of the group include Internet service providers (ISPs), technology vendors and telecoms companies who make financial contributions and sometimes instruct, as well as international organizations who frequently donate books and equipment.
Uwadia informed that participants and instructors at this year’s summit consist of engineering staff from network service providers, ICT managers in educational and commercial organizations, policy makers and administrators from regulatory bodies, and members of the research and education community.
Speaking on the choice of University of Lagos as the host of this year’s event, he said the school has about 32 sub-networks on the Akoka campus alone, 5,000 computers of which more than 3,000 are connected to the Internet, a bandwidth of 11Mbps, a fibre backbone round the campus such that all academic buildings are linked by fibre and Local Area Network (LAN).
The ngNOG forum has been as a result of the domestication of the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) forum stemming from the global Internet Society’s (Isoc) Internet Technology (Inet) workshops, which began in 1993.
With support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the NSRC, AfNOG and other Nigerian and international partners, the first Preparatory Nigerian Network Operators Group (Pre-ngNOG I) workshop and meetings was hosted by the University of Ibadan from July 18-21, 2006; to accelerate ICT capacity building and prepare delegates for more advanced training on network infrastructure and network services at subsequent ngNOG and AfNOG workshops.