KTH Master Students supports Somali universities in planning and deployment of a national research education network (NREN).

During the autumn of 2011 a group of 7 students have been working in close cooperating with Somali research education network (SomaliREN) to aid in planning and deployment of national fiber infrastructure. The current team is the third team at KTH working towards this goal for 20 weeks.

The project team has worked with both a long and a short term goal in mind. To solve the different issues a mixture theory, industry experts, Somali diaspora, private sector, foundations and field tests have been used. Through the close cooperating with both the private sector in Sweden and the Somali universities the KTH SomaliREN team has been able to ensure the initial deployment of the first links in the city of Haregeisha as well as temporary radio links in Mogadishu. Detailed plans for national links interconnecting 9 universities have been made as well as a prospect of the potential for national dark fiber network.

Through the help of the Stockholm based Al-Azhar foundation the first links will be deployed shortly in the city of Haregiesha. A pilot project used to prove both the feasibility and advantages of a NREN in Somalia that is hoped to pave the way for a stable development of the education system in Somalia.

An open invitation to the final presentation on January 10^th and 11^th 2011 is hereby offered to anyone who wishes to know more about the KTH SomaliREN project as well as other KTH projects aimed at solving real life issues with the help of state of the art research and technology. Examples of other projects that will be presented are Carenet - a residential home gateway for remote medical monitoring; AGLARBRI – Planning rural fiber access around the great lake of victoria in Africa; GreenNet – Using super capacitors and solar panels to generate and store power in rural and warm areas.   

Website : http://csd.xen.ssvl.kth.se/csdlive/content/somaliren-3
Official Contact: Mikael Rapp, Project Manager <mikrap@kth.se> | + 46 739 08 78 96
Press release availble at : http://csd.xen.ssvl.kth.se/csdlive/sites/default/files/projects/PressRealse_SomaliREN_201201.pdf