Presented as the DIRISA SA National Data Workshop 2 July 2019, CSIR

1. Applying scientific thinking
in the service of society
Accelerating Science, Technology and
Innovation Through Open Data and
Open Science:
African Open Science Platform
Presented by Ina Smith - @ismonet
Project Manager, African Open Science Platform
SA National Research Data Workshop, 2 July 2019

3. Ebola outbreak 2014-2015 in West Africa

4. Ebola outbreak 2014-2015

5. Example challenges regarding health data
• Delay in sharing pathogen data
collected
• Gaps in pathogen data
• Lack of adherence to
international standards
• Uncertainty about IP rights
• Absence of patient consent
• Data not FAIR
• “Open possible, closed
necessary”
• And more

9. Future AOSP Phase 1 Vision
“African scientists are at the cutting edge of
contemporary, data-intensive science as a
fundamental resource for a modern society. They
are innovative global exponents and advocates of
Open Science, and leaders in addressing African
and Global Challenges.”
Source: The Future of Science and Science of the Future
https://tinyurl.com/y7aw4oa4

10. Future AOSP Phase 1 Mission
“The Platform is:
•a [trusted, continental, integrated] federated
system that provides scientists and other societal
actors with the means to find, deposit, manage,
share and reuse data, software and metadata in
pursuing their interests;
•a network providing connective tissue between
dispersed actors in ….”

11. NICIS Model for South Africa (national)
SANReN
CHPCDIRISA

12. Collaboration among countries, institutions, projects,
researchers – sharing resources; free flow of data,
research, knowledge
Trust relationships, openness, transparency – trusting
others for having your best interest at heart, and not
because of the profits they can make from your
research
Researcher driven – needs addressed & bring
infrastructure to data
Key to AOSP

13. African countries to prepare
• Connectivity, bandwidth
• Science engagement
• Open Data policies, making research data management a
requirement
• Incentives for sharing research data, and funders to make open
data a requirement (as open possible)
• Opportunities for skills development among network providers,
system architects, system support staff, user support staff, data
engineers, data architects, data stewards, data scientists,
policy/decision-makers
• Trusted and reliable eInfrastructure

14. Similar to European Open Science Cloud, others
"We are not building the future EOSC from scratch,
but will be starting from what members of the
community worked in the last years: inclusiveness is
going to be critical, especially in regions whose
voice has not been heard enough so far." -
Cathrin Stöver, Chief Collaboration Officer, GÉANT

16. “It was revealed last month [April 2019] that the tech
giant plans to launch a network of more than 3,000
low Earth orbit satellites to provide high-speed
broadband connectivity to "unserved and
underserved communities around the world".

18. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/google-is-building-a-powerful-new-
internet-cable-from-europe-to-south-africa-2019-6

19. GÉANT Connecting the global R&E Community
https://www.geant.org/News_and_Events/Pages/Mapping-the-global-RandE-
community.aspx

20. https://map.geant.org/

21.  ASREN - Algeria, Egypt, Lybia, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia
(4 connected; 2 not yet connected)
 WACREN - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire,
Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Togo
(3 connected; 11 not yet connected)
 UbuntuNet Alliance - Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia,
Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda,
Zambia, Zimbabwe
(10 connected; 6 not yet connected)
Connected countries

22. NRENs providing specialised Internet services

23. NRENs providing specialised Internet services
• Large bandwidth network connections between
research institutions and providers of HPC and
research Cloud providers
• NRENs may be able to provide high performance
computing and storage services in some cases (not
core business)
• In SA – high performance computing service provided
by HPCC and storage services by DIRISA

24. NRENs experimenting with data transfer
https://www.sanren.ac.za/services/pert/data-transfer-pilot/

25. Analysis of Big and Broad Research Data
• Require high performance computing services
ResearchDataManagement

26. High Performance Computing Services
• Cloud systems to provide highly flexible environments
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud providers - to
be linked to NRENs e.g. OpenStack
• Performance loss to be addressed through OpenStack
provisioning HPC environments onto the bare metal
servers making up the underling clusters
• New standards such as AARC2 BluePrint architecture
are enabling role based authorized, secure access to
distributed Cloud systems - accessing data distributed
among the federated resources

27. High Performance Computing Services
Examples of organisations providing IaaS Cloud systems
to support research include NeCTAR in Australia and
Compute Canada (CC).
A slightly different example is EGI that provides a
framework and toolset to federate the IaaS Cloud
systems hosted at data centres across Europe.

28. African Open Science Platform Pilot (2016 – 2019)
• Landscape study – 66+ data-intensive initiatives
• Stakeholders (network) – 1 500+ individuals
• Priority data-intensive disciplines
• Frameworks:
• Open Data Policy (statements, enabling processes, elements)
• Incentives (actions, career assessment)
• eInfrastructure (connectivity, cloud & hpc, data curation)
• Capacity Building (technical & non-technical)
• Research Data Management (services, core skills, dmp)
• Funders (work in progress)

29. AOSP Stakeholders
https://atlas.mindmup.com/2019/04/51a0845065de11e9b92b8d9fa90c
559e/free_mind_map/index.html

30. AOSP Data Science School

32. AOSP eInfrastructure Ecosystem (Draft)

33. Proposed data-intensive flagship project (Draft)

34. eInfrastructure Roadmap (Draft)

35. South Africa White Paper on STI
“As part of its commitment to African STI cooperation,
South Africa will also work to advance the open science
agenda elsewhere on the continent and within regional
frameworks. The strategic role of the African Open
Science Platform, hosted by the Academy of Science of
South Africa, which promotes African-wide
development and coordination of data policies, data
training and data infrastructure, will be leveraged with
the support of the DST and the National Research
Foundation (NRF).”

36. STI Strategy for Africa 2024 - Priorities for the
African research community
1. disease prevention & control;
2. climate resilience (disaster risk);
3. environmental protection (biosphere, hydrosphere);
4. food and nutritional security;
5. smart resilient cities; [SONA]
6. achieving sustainability goals;
7. improved knowledge production;
8. improved intra-Africa research collaboration.

37. SGCI Statement of Principles and Actions: Social
and Economic Impact of Research (2018)
“Governance, Risk Management and Compliance
(GRC) participants should support and advocate for the
development and use of Open Science platforms that
widen access to knowledge and allow integrated
problem solving at a potentially transformative (as
opposed to incremental) scale.
GRC participants should commit funding towards the
development of the human capital necessary for
leveraging the potential of Big Data, as well as invest in
the infrastructure required materialising Open Science
platforms.”

38. Congratulations!
Dr Happy Sithole - NSTF-South32 Management
Award
Prof Tandi Matsha - NSTF-South32 Data for Research
Award

39. Thank you!
ina@assaf.org.za
http://africanopenscience.org.za