UbuntuNET through the Kenya Education Network (KENET) is seeking corporate sponsorship for Connect 2011. The event will be held between 23rd and 25th of November at Nairobi’s Safari Park hotel and will attract more than 100 participants from educational and research institutions from Africa and beyond. Meoli Kashorda, CEO of KENET says that they are seeking sponsorship of about KES 11 million which would go towards meeting accommodation and travel expenses of the event participants. He made the announcement at a breakfast event held at the Nairobi Intercontinental Hotel. The sponsorship will be divided into four tiers: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. KENET is seeking one Platinum sponsor at KES 3 million, two Gold sponsors at KES 1.5 million each, four silver sponsors at KES 750,000 each and ten Bronze sponsors at KES 200,000 each.

Kashorda says that any surplus funds remaining form the sponsorship will go towards capacity building for KENET staff. This includes sending techies to Africa Network Operators’ Group events (AfNOG).
UbuntuNET is an alliance of several African National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) – mostly those in Eastern and Southern Africa. UbuntuNET seeks to interconnect and promote exchange of content between their member NRENs.
Connect 2011 is expected to attract CEOs and CTOs drawn from various African NRENs including delegations from Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria. The conference will also see presentation of several research papers in Infrastructure and content. Kashorda says that the conference will also have a focus on Grid Computing with representative researchers and faculty members from several Kenyan and African universities presenting on the topic. Also expected are the Government education and ICT policy makers and representatives of partner NRENs in USA and Europe.
Among the company’s represented at the breakfast event include Western Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), Seacom, Dimension Data, Frontier Optical Network (FON), Alcatel Leucent, Kenya Data Networks (KDN), Safaricom, Sight and Sound.
Sponsors have up to September 19, 2011 to confirm their participation.