Good morning all
I will add my thoughts inline below.
Cheers, Josva
On 18 Feb 2026, at 10.47, Licia Florio licia@nordu.net wrote:
Dear all,
I would like to check a couple of things about the session speakers to invite, but for some things I’m not fully sure:
- Enabling Access session
I think we should leave some opening for the submissions, so in that light should we invite only Stefan (who will be no doubt at NDN conference) ? I think we should be able to have 2 decent submissions to complete the session - Thoughts?
There are pro- and cons to consider. If we are absolutely sure we can expect submissions with topics that are relevant and not just updates on some tweaks going on here and there, the allowing room for submissions is good as it can be used as a leaver for people to come who would otherwise not do so. On the other hand we may end up being with sub-par presentations. Inviting presentations on the other hand give us the opportunity to ensure that we have content that we deem relevant and ensure that we get people who have proper content to present, even at the expense of having to waive their conference fee - should it end up like that.
- Why project fails session - This is not in the programme grid anymore. Was it killed or repurposed?
Susanne - did we nuke that panel? When the programme starts to live in several places I get very confused.
- Disruption session -
I really like the "History of the NREN's are we falling behind” do we have a name for a person that could do such a talk?
We have Michiel - I’ll email him today. What about Leif? What would he talk about ? We would need 3 speakers here
First of all we need to decide what mean when we say NREN - the traditional NREN, the full service national e-Infrastructure provider, the full service national e-Infrastructure provider with additional national mandate.
And then let’s consider what we mean with falling behind and then discuss who to put in there (below are my initial thoughts for the traditional NREN).
- Network. We used to be at the forefront of tech development, activity engaged in IETF, defining standards etc, actively engaged with the vendors and so on. But now, we are a niche area for the vendors, the global internet connectivity is mostly driven by GAMAM. The good news here - but perhaps it is going to fail as it is seeming only Europe - is that governments are seeing the challenge of letting such an important infrastructure be totally in the hands of commercial interests. - Enabling access. Our federated model have shown its strength, but is only worth it if we have federated resources we need to access and won’t we eventually be run over be initiatives that are more well-rooted at the government level. Here there are of course nuances as some NRENs have a much broader mandate nationally. - Development of services. What services have we actually developed that are actively being used at universities? - Supporting science. Our success stories are about building networks of some kind - but look at the struggle we have with EuroHPC Hypercon, perhaps living up to today’s requirements is getting too difficult for us. - Procurement - true, size matters and by joining forces we may get better deals. But then we need to agree. NORDUnet is so proud of its dynamic purchasing system - but is it just a way to bypass procurement legislation or are we seeing financial benefits when we take everything into account.
- What about eduroam? I feel eduroam it’s often neglected. It can be in the enabling access, can be in the network, can be in the community we serve. It would be good not to forget about it, if anything because it’s one of the good thing our community is known for. And the nordics are v active there.
Haven’t eduroam reach the point where a presentation about it would be like a presentation about forwarding IP packets. It has become such a success that it is taken for granted. Or are we aware of actual development that would change things significantly and I am not just talking about making what we already have easier (geteduroam)?
Thanks! Licia