A festival of open science in Africa

Blog post contributed by Bruce Becker, (CSIR), co-organiser of the event   The Energising Scientific Endeavour through Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa project (Sci-GaIA) will be holding a User Forum and Conference on 23 to 24 March in Pretoria, South Africa. During the course of the project (May 2015-May 2017), Sci-GaIA has worked with research communities across Africa, in fields such as public health, environmental monitoring, medical imaging, natural language processing and machine learning and bioinformatics, to promote the Open Science paradigm. The project has also worked with key partners such as DataCite, ORCID, Indigo-DataCloud and EGI to deliver a viable Open Science Platform. A series of training activities has produced re-usable material for the development of Open Science applications. The papers submitted to the User Forum highlight the work of our champions. As the project comes to a close, we will be discussing what to do next. With the launch of the European Open Science Cloud, the hosting of ICRI in South Africa, and the announcement of the African Open Science Platform, there is significant of momentum towards the realisation of an inclusive Open Science reality in Africa. Come and be a part of what Africa brings to the Open Science party! Participation is free for those who can attend. We invite anyone with a stake in the Open Science movement to take part. Remote streaming will be available via YouTube. Community engagement via our discussion forum is open to all. You can find more information on the event's webpage.