[afnog] Introducing Southern Africa Network Operators Group - SAFNOG

[Mark Tinka]

Hi Seun/Froztbyte/all.

I'll offer some feedback to queries below.

SAFNOG, in its present form, is unlike country-level NOG's. 
SAFNOG is focused on a 2-day, conference-style technical 
operator meeting, open to all countries the world over, to 
discuss technical, engineering and operational issues that 
service providers, enterprise networks, NREN's, e.t.c., face 
on a daily basis. While country-level NOG's tend to hold 
workshops, SAFNOG will not hold workshops.

Unlike AfNOG (and as already mentioned above), SAFNOG will 
not hold workshops, and focuses purely on a 2-day conference 
looking at operational matters facing various sectors of our 
industry, from a global and African perspective.

SAFNOG may be held more than once in a single year, also 
unlike AfNOG and some country-level NOG's (up to two or 
three times a year).

SAFNOG is not meant to compete with AfNOG or country-level 
NOG's. In fact, SAFNOG will compliment them, where papers 
and issues discussed at SAFNOG will be prime candidates for 
presentation at AfNOG, given SAFNOG is scheduled before 
AfNOG. To this end, SAFNOG will give young presenters the 
chance to make their work or challenges public before 
considering bigger meetings like AfNOG, and in the long run, 
further promote knowledge sharing and openness among 
operators in the African market.

SAFNOG is not driven by ISOC, or any single entity we know 
of today. It is supported by volunteers who have generously 
offered their time, for free, to build SAFNOG. For a list of 
the current SAFNOG Management Committee, please see:

	http://www.safnog.org/org.html

Hope this offers some general clarification.

Cheers,

Mark.

On Tuesday, January 28, 2014 04:43:06 PM Seun Ojedeji wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 2:57 PM, JP 
<froztbyte at froztbyte.net> wrote:
> > On 28 Jan 2014, at 1:25 PM, Kevin Chege <chege at isoc.org> 
wrote:
> > > Greetings to you all.
> > > 
> > > We would like to take this opportunity to introduce
> > > to you a new network operators group, SAFNOG.
> > > SAFNOG stands for Southern Africa Network Operators
> > > Group. As you might guess, it is a NOG for the
> > > Southern African region, with a vision to hold
> > > meetings in a different Southern African country
> > > each year. SAFNOG, of course, is open to the entire
> > > world as well. Details about SAFNOG, and how to
> > > subscribe to the SAFNOG
> > > 
> > > mailing list can be found at:
> > >          www.safnog.org
> > > 
> > > SAFNOG will be holding its first operational and
> > > technical meeting - SAFNOG-1 - on 22nd & 23rd April,
> > > 2014, at the Sandton Hilton hotel in Johannesburg,
> > > South Africa. More details on this to follow in
> > > upcoming messages and on the web site.
> > 
> > I'll put this as non-offensively as I can manage, but:
> > why bother?
> > 
> > Why create a splinter community instead of just growing
> > the afnog one further? I don't see anything
> > immediately listed on your site which couldn't form up
> > as a part or chapter of afnog.
> 
> +1 Perhaps It will be good to hear/understand reason
> behind this initiative(considering that this was sent
> from isoc.org domain i assume its official from ISOC).
> One that quickly comes to mind is distance (the cost to
> travel to afnog training from southern African
> countries, which ofcourse does not just apply to
> southern africans alone :)). If that was the main
> reason, I would have thought investing efforts towards
> setting up "National NOGs", would have been more
> appropriate. Just like we have GhNOG, NgNOG, TzNOG etc.
> The other point would be to ask about afnog hosting
> process, i.e is selection on "best host application" OR
> "better host application" that put region into
> consideration for fair distribution of the travel cost
> and other costs including language et all.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> > -J
> > _______________________________________________
> > afnog mailing list
> > http://afnog.org/mailman/listinfo/afnog
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