HP and UNESCO launch joint project to counter brain drain in Africa

HP and UNESCO today announced the launch of a new project “Piloting Solutions for Reversing Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Africa”, which aims to help reduce brain drain in Africa by providing grid computing technology to universities in Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Zimbabwe. 

The project aims to re-establish links between researchers who have stayed in their native countries and those that have left, connecting scientists to international colleagues, research networks and funding opportunities. Faculties and students at beneficiary universities will also be able to work on major collaborative research projects with other institutions around the world.

“This project harnesses the enormous potential of information and communication technology to bring people together and to spread the benefits of research and development across the north-south divide,” said the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura. “We trust that such collaborative projects will enable us to significantly reduce the devastating effects of brain drain in developing countries,” he concluded.

“UNESCO and HP have a long-standing relationship, and we have worked together on projects throughout the world. This new African project builds on the success the UNESCO-HP initiative launched in 2003 in seven countries in South East Europe to alleviate brain drain in the region,” said Bernard Meric, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, HP EMEA.

The African project was developed by UNESCO´s Education Sector in response to requests by Member States. Over the past decades, African countries have suffered greatly from the emigration of skilled professionals, scientists, academics and researchers who are estimated to be leaving the continent at the rate of 20,000 a year. After its first  two-year implementation phase, the project may well be extended to cover other countries. The Education Ministries of the countries involved, along with UNESCO, will choose the universities that will benefit from the project. Preference will be given to university departments with important information technology components. HP will provide equipment – including servers and grid-enabling technologies – and local human resources to the universities, as well as training and support, until the projects become self-sustainable. It will also donate PCs and monitors and fund research visits abroad and meetings between beneficiary universities. UNESCO will be in charge of overall coordination and monitoring of activities, as well as administrative management, evaluation and promotion of results. After its first two-year implementation phase, the project may be extended to cover other countries.

This new project in Africa follows the successful joint HP-UNESCO “Piloting Solutions for Alleviating Brain Drain in South East Europe” project, launched in 2003 to support faculties and students in harnessing the power of grid computing.

Three years after its launch, the project has resulted in the development of websites, databases and new research projects at several of the universities involved. Academics and students from across South East Europe have collaborated with international  colleagues, improved research capacities and shared scientific knowledge, encouraging scientists to remain in the region. Four universities (University of Split in Croatia, University of Montenegro, East Sarajevo University and the University of Sarajevo) have become self-sustainable in the use of grid technology and the project continues in three other universities (University of Belgrade, University of Skopje and the University of Tirana).

Grid computing is a hardware and software infrastructure that clusters and integrates high-end computer networks, databases and scientific instruments from multiple sources to form a virtual environment in which users can work collaboratively. The grid concept was developed in the mid-1990s as a shared computing approach that coordinates decentralised resources and uses open, general-purpose protocols and interfaces to deliver high-quality service levels. Grids of computing centres are being created by the universities and public research laboratories to be able to make massive distributed computations in areas such as bioinformatics, physics, molecular science and meteorology. Most efforts in grid computing are related to the ability to build infrastructures and use them for cooperative work. The grid is designed to render almost anything in IT – computers, processing power, data, Web services, storage space, software applications, data files or devices – a “grid service”.

UNESCO is the United Nations lead agency for education, science, culture and communication. It functions as a laboratory of ideas and a standard-setter to forge universal agreements in its fields of competences. The Organisation also serves as a clearinghouse – for the dissemination and sharing of information and knowledge – while helping its 190 Member States to build their human and institutional capacities in diverse fields. Complete information about UNESCO’s activities around the world is available at www.unesco.org .

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended Oct. 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $91.7 billion.