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Brazilian, Ecuadorian, and Chilean musicians play together through videoconferencing

Show is part of the launching of the Ecuadorian Education and Research Network

In the launching of the Ecuadorian Education and Research Network, in Quito, on July 27, there was a show in which Brazilian, Ecuadorian and Chilean musicians played together through videoconferencing. The Brazilian musicians played at RNP’s office, in Rio de Janeiro.

The event was part of the program of the 9^th Walc – Workshop on Internet Network Technology for Latin America and the Caribbean, which took place in Quito, Ecuador, from July 24 to 29. Together with the workshop, there were three meetings: the technical meeting of Clara Network (Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks), Clara’s general meeting, and Alice Project meeting (Latin America Interconnected with Europe).

Walc promoted workshops on several subjects, including wireless networks for data transmission, Web development with free software, content development and production, network management, IP telephony, and computer science security. Moreover, it promoted the Internet and Society Forum, which debated themes such as e-governess, the development of networks for knowledge, technological alternatives for social inclusion and policies for access democratization, and Latin American positioning before the World Information Society Leaders.

Clara’s technical meeting, which took place on July 24 and 25, was organized by Michael Stanton and Iara Machado, respectively RNP’s innovation director and R&D project manager. Among the themes discussed were the technical recommendations of the working groups, the experiences of implantation of the national academic networks already connected to Clara network, as well as long-range Wi-Fi networks, low-cost wireless networks, and 3 projects: Hermes (security), Eela (computational grids), and Ringrid (remote instrumentation on computational grids).

As for Alice project’s meeting, it took place on July 27 and 28. Nelson Simões, RNP’s CEO, was co-president of this reunion, which discussed Clara’s strategic and public relations plans, besides presenting the results of the network monitoring and the news related to Aclara project, a research project catalogue of the Latin American university system. Another issue debated was a financing and sustainability plan for Alice project, created by the European Union in 2003, for the maintenance of Clara Network until May 2006. The project received an investment of 12.5 million euros and was already extended for one more year, but it needs to gain financial autonomy as of 2007. The plan will be submitted to the project’s partners and to the European Union.

Clara’s general meeting, which took place on July 28, also discussed Clara Network’s sustainability plan. According to the plan, the maintenance costs of that network will be shared by the Latin American partners as of 2008. Furthermore, a new proposal is being made regarding support collaboration from the European Commission to the regional infrastructure and its direct connection to Géant, which, in practice, would be an extension of Alice project. The meeting was chaired by Nelson Simões, who is also Clara’s president.

Through Clara Network (Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks), RNP communicates with Internet 2 and Géant.

[RNP, 08.23.2006]