Abu-Ghazaleh: AUB Joins Global Research and Education Networking Community

AMMAN – March 27, 2016 - The Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) has signed a cooperation agreement with the American University of Beirut (AUB) granting the University an access to educational, computerized and research resources available in the European, American and global research and education networks.

HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, ASREN Chairman, highlighted the importance of networking community to AUB as a well-established university at regional and global levels, allowing research and online connection with Arab and global research communities.

Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh said that "It is no wonder that the AUB, from which I graduated, did this excellent effort while some countries in the region are hesitant about the creation of technical networking with global research and educational networks, and this shows how the University is advanced, forward-thinking and interested in developing research and education". 

The cooperation agreement comes under Euro-Mediterranean networking project funded by European Union and ran (EU) and ran by GÉANT organization which is responsible for running research and education networks for Pan-Europe in cooperation with ASREN.  

According to the agreement, ASREN will provide services of technical networking of AUB's network with European Research and Education Network and other global networks for connecting with academic and research community.

Dr. Yousif Asfour, CIO at AUB, explained "National Research and Education Networks (NREN) in Lebanon can be viewed as a challenging task due to the political climate, high communication costs, limited infrastructure and increased tariffs".

Asfour continued "But by moving the NREN discussion away from how can we build a fast and cheap network, it opens the doors to putting the focus on providing shared services to build a community and then using this community as leverage to build the high bandwidth. The implementation of eduroam at AUB has delivered a key argument to secure a critical mass of support.”

Steve Cotter, CEO GÉANT, stated “we understand that the American University of Beirut and other Lebanese institutions have a long history of academic and scientific excellence. The connection to GÉANT will open up further opportunities for their researchers and students to engage in exciting international collaborations with their peers in Europe and further afield, and access to advanced research and educational resources.”

The service will be accessed through Online Center of ASREN in London which is directly connected with European, American and Global research and education using orientation protocol for information-sharing between connected networks with the capacity of 10 Mbps and allowing internet protocol to enable appropriate connectivity between Euro-Mediterranean network and AUB's network.    

http://www.aub.edu.lb/news/2016/Pages/asren-geant.aspx