The 15th Southern African Development Community’s Cyberinfrastructure (CI) forum is currently taking place at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria. The countries in attendance are, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The forum is developing a five-year regional CI implementation plan, which will be presented for endorsement in March 2025 at the SADC Senior Official Meeting for Education and Training, Science, Technology and Innovation (ET-STI). The plan will then be submitted for final approval at the SADC Ministerial Meeting in Zimbabwe in June 2025. 

The implementation plan aims to operationalise the SADC Cyberinfrastructure Framework, which was approved by SADC ET-STI ministers in 2016. The framework aims to enhance regional research and education networks, data-sharing infrastructure and human capital development to ensure the efficient and effective use of CI resources.

The inaugural SADC CI forum was held during the CHPC National Conference in Durban in 2012, when South Africa was the only member state with a CI. Since then, through the implementation of the regional CI framework and national initiatives, several southern African member states have established high-performance computing facilities.

“National research networks are also developing in the region. We need to accelerate the rate at which we upgrade our infrastructure for the development of our countries,” said Dr Willie Ganda, Chief Director for Innovation, Science and Technology Development at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.

The growing availability of CI infrastructure in the region presents new opportunities for researchers, domain scientists and cross-border collaborations in research and development. 

The two-day forum concludes on Tuesday, 18 February 2025.