AMERICAS EU-LAC ICT & e-Infrastructures Conference for R&D cooperation held in Campeche, Mexico on 3-4 October 2013

The AMERICAS Conference took place at the Convention Center of Campeche (Mexico) on 3-4 October 2013 in the framework of the CUDI’s Autumn Meeting, hosted by Universidad Autónoma de Campeche. The AMERICAS project has been promoting e-Infrastructures for e-Science collaboration to spread the benefits and power of world-class ICT-based infrastructures for R&D cooperation between Europe and Latin America. The main objectives of the EU-LAC ICT & e-Infrastructures Conference were to show the impact of e-Infrastructures used in different e-Science domains in Latin America: Life Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, Data Access & Preservation, Astronomy & Astrophysics, and to strengthen networking between ICT and e-Infrastructures communities, to exchange views, share information and identify new opportunities for R&D collaboration.

The Conference brought together over 200 participants from 10 countries: Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, USA, Spain, and also speakers from UK, Italy and the European Commission in Brussels that participated via videoconference. It was attended by delegates from RedCLARA and GEANT, Latin America’s NRENs (CUDI, RENATA, RedCONARE, RNP and REUNA), EU-LAC projects funded by the European Commission (AMERICAS, RISC, ELCIRA, CHAIN, M.-Inclusion) and other advanced computing initiatives, as well as researchers from Universities and industry (CISCO, NOKIA).

The opening session was chaired by Miguel González, of Tecnológico de Monterrey, and the Conference began with welcome addresses from Sergio Gabriel Matheos, Argentina’s Subsecretary of Institutional Coordination of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation (MINCYT) and e-Infrastructures NCP; followed by Carlos Casasús, Director General of CUDI, Yolanda Ursa, the AMERICAS coordinator; Moira Karosuo of CONACYT and Neil Hernández, of Tecnológico de Monterrey and ICT NCP.

The event showed the advance of ICT and e-Infrastructures research in Latin America and its potential for cooperation with Europe. It was organised around four topics:

• EU-LAC cooperation in ICT & e-Infrastructures
• e-Infrastructures in the EU-LAC political dialogue
• ICT and e-Infrastructures priorities in Latin America
• e-Infrastructures and Innovation in Latin America: Panel on Industry and Academia cooperation

The full agenda including presentations of the Conference can be found here.

"EU-LAC cooperation in ICT and e-Infrastructures" Workshop, Querétaro, México April 15 2013

The AMERICAS project invites you to the workshop “EU-LAC Cooperation in ICT and e-Infrastructures: The role of e-Infrastructures in México”, organized by Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) and with the support of CUDI the Mexican NREN, which will be held in Querétaro, México on 15^th April, in the context of “Spring CUDI Meeting 2013” (15^th - 17^th April).

The objective of the workshop is to share the e-Infrastructures mapping of Latin America, main e-Science domains for e-Infrastructures research, as well as Virtual Research Communities (VCR) and application fields linked to domains such as Life sciences, Earth sciences, Engineering, Computer sciences and mathematics, among others.

This research has been elaborated by the AMERICAS Project in collaboration with the Consejo Especial de e-Infraestructuras in Mexico and other Latin American Task Forces for ICT-e-Infrastructures set up by the AMERICAS Project.

Download the agenda and the brochure for more information about the workshop.

Over the next five years, nearly 40 percent of organizations around the globe are likely to outsource their IT infrastructure!

In a survey conducted by Vanson Bourne in 2010, nearly 38 percent of IT decision makers had disliked the idea of owning in-house IT infrastructure. According to their new survey, more than half of all organizations regretted their decision to invest in IT equipments. The report shows growing interest in outsourced infrastructure and cloud computing as means for freeing up budgets, fostering collaboration and operational efficiencies, and building competitive advantage. Three in five IT and business decision makers contacted by the research firm agreed that owning and operating in-house IT infrastructure drives costs higher and wastes resources.

Over the next five years, nearly 40 percent of organizations around the globe are likely to outsource their IT infrastructure as part of their efforts to cut down cost and increase efficiency, predicts the survey.

More information about the survey

Latin America is thinking big about public transports

In this area, Brazil is leading the way with a pair of highly ambitious projects. The first, the Trem de Alta Velocidad (TAV), will link the economic hubs of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo with the continent’s first high-speed rail connection. The railway will reduce the inter-city journey time from its current five hours to a mere 90 minutes with trains reaching speeds of up to 215mph. The second project is a planned ring road skirting the periphery of São Paulo – a popular outsourcing destination blighted by some of Latin America’s most grinding traffic.

Elsewhere in the region, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic were praised for new public transport initiatives designed to tackle congestion. In Venezuela, an innovative new horse-shore cable car system will link San Agustin in Caracas to some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, while in Santo Domingo a new Metro is already carrying 200,000 commuters a day with a planned expansion for five further lines.

Colombia was also singled out for its plans to improve the country’s often dire inter-city transport with the Autopistas de La Montaña project, which will cross 125 municipalities with 777 miles of road. However, while the Infrastructure 100 praised the project for its potential to “bring huge social benefits and help increase trade and commerce in Colombia and the surrounding region,” in Colombia, the project is mired in controversy over spiraling costs and planning irregularities.

More information about "After Decades of Neglect, Latin America Tackles Bigger, More Ambitious Infrastructure Projects"

EUBrazilOpenBio project embarks in the biodiversity research area

Officially started on 1st October 2011 and funded by the European Commission (FP7-ICT) and the Brazilian Minister of Science Technology and Innovation (MCTI) - National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) within the 2010 edition of the EU-Brazil coordinated call, EUBrazilOpenBio “Open Data and Cloud Computing e-Infrastructure for Biodiversity” will set-up a virtual environment -namely an e-Infrastructure of open access resources-, to tackle the complexity of Biodiversity Science, in line with the European and Brazilian drive to join forces and deploy cloud computing solutions to address scientific challenges in fields such as environment modelling, biodiversity and life science.

"Europe and Brazil share many cultural and social roots and values, which are reflected in the way we have been addressing the socio-economic potential and the challenges of ICT. […] Both sides have a lot to gain in further strengthening collaboration in this field."

Ms Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, released this statement in conjunction with the Workshop "Brazil-EU Cooperation in ICT R&D" which took place on 7th & 8th November in Brasilia, Brazil, crowning the launch of a new coordinated call for research and development, while the new project had just started exactly to respond to European and Brazilian need of cooperation in biodiversity.

The principal product of the project will be to operate an e-Infrastructure for the biodiversity user communities working on biodiversity taxonomy and niche modelling. “A user services support and operation centre will be set-up to support our user communities while exploiting the Virtual Research Environment provided by the EUBrazilOpenBio platform“ explained Vinod Rebello, EUBrazilOpenBio Brazilian Scientific Director. “The success of EUBrazilOpenBIo will be measured by the level of our users' satisfaction”.

EUBrazilOpenBio has already been presented in Europe, at the GRDI2020 workshop on 18th October in Brussels, and in Brazil at the Workshop "Brazil-EU Cooperation in ICT R&D" 7th Nov 2011, Brasilia by Vanderlei Perez Canhos, Brazilian Coordinator, and Vassil Alexandrov, European Coordinator. It has two main objectives: to empower user groups to leverage data e-Infrastructure of Open Access resources, tools and services & to educate collaborative communities, especially next generation scientists, on the benefits of such data e-Infrastructure, as an example of cooperative research without frontiers.

For more information please refer to the project website.