Zambia Research and Education Network

ZAMREN's growth is built, not only on professional expertise in ICT, but also on its strong links with local education and research institutions as well as access to regional and international research and education networks and tools. For example, ZAMREN members have access to Moodle, a Learning Platform used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other online learning programmes.

ZAMREN's goal is to develop, promote, and operate shared ICT infrastructure and services for the enhancement of education and research in Zambia. Because ZAMREN has been established specifically for research and education institutions in Zambia, it is constantly seeking to pursue and provide services to institutions that can not be commercially provided by commercial ISPs.

With the development of digital tools and online connectivity, universities and education systems in general are undergoing massive transformations. Institutional stakeholder engagement and academic program implementation are changing largely due to rapid enhancements in ICT. Through its network and services, ZAMREN is geared to playing its part in enabling policy makers, administrators and academics to take advantage of these transformations and inspire academic excellency and research.

To this end, training workshops for member institutions' IT staff are provided as and when the need is identified.

Have your website hosted by ZAMREN! This service is both reliable and affordable. Member institutions can also have corporate email accounts for both staff and students at a very competitive rate. In addition, domain name registration and DNS hosting are both offered to ZAMREN members at no charge.

Security and Governance

ZAMREN members can be confident in using these web hosting, email and domain name services. Security is put in place to mitigate against exposure of sensitive data, hacking threats and any other possible vulnerabilities.

ZAMREN has three levels of governance - the ZAMREN AGM, the ZAMREN Board and the ZAMREN Management. The AGM is the top decision-making body that sustains the organisation’s goal of collaboration within Zambia. Made up of Institutional heads of ZAMREN member institutions, the AGM elects and appoints members to the ZAMREN Board.

Current ZAMREN Board Members

Prof. Hellicy Ng’ambi (Mulungushi University): Board Chairperson

Prof. Pinalo Chifwanakeni (UNILUS): Board Vice Chairperson

Prof. Naison Ngoma (CBU): Member

Prof. Luke Mumba (UNZA): Member

Mr. Simon Muwowo (ZESCO): TREC Committee Chairperson

Mr. Patrick Mutimushi (ZICTA): Chairperson for Finance & Admin

Dr. Alick Muvundika (NISIR): Risk & Audit Committee Chairperson

Dr. Pardon Mwansa (Rusangu): Member

Mr Mike Nguluta (Ndola Biomedical): Member

Mr. Ronald Hatoongo (UNZA): Board Secretary

Dr. Robert Janz: Advisor to the Board

Mr. Stein Mkandawire : ZAMREN CEO

The ZAMREN management structure is comprised of Administration, Finance and Operations. The day-to-day operations of the Institution are overseen by the Chief Executive Officer.

High Performance Computing

Research and Education Networks are becoming more common in many countries in Africa, supporting academics and researchers in an environment that has become increasingly dependent on ICT services and infrastructure. This is paramount as their core activities demands access to and analysis of vast amount of data.

Federated Identity

The FIDERN Identity Federation has been launched to facilitate and simplify the introduction of shared services across Research and Education Networks (RENs). Using FIDERN's technology, the scope of a digital identity issued by one member institute is extended to be valid across the whole network. To find out more, read here https://fidern.ac.zm/.

This Federated Identity service is further extended through the eduGAIN inter-federation service, which is made up of over 80 participant federations connecting more than 8,000 Identity and Service Providers.

Eduroam

Eduroam stands for 'education roaming'. This is a secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community under the GÉANT Collaboration. This allows students, researchers and staff to access the internet through hotspots, when moving across campus or visiting other participating institutions. To find out more, read here https://geant.org/

ZAMREN's Partner organisations

International partners include:

• UbuntuNet Alliance
• NSRC (network Startup Resource Center)
• Indiana University
• Astria Learning
• ChipC Centre for High Performance Computing

Local partners include:

• ZICTA
• ZESCO
• Fibrecom
• Liquid Intelligent Technologies
• University of Zambia
• Copperbelt University