Valentino Cavalli

Tightening of Project Budget – Stricter Funding Criteria

The Vietsch Foundation currently operates in three directions: the Annual Medal of Honour, the Seed Project Funding, and the collection of Funds to support URAN in the difficult situation the NREN of Ukraine is finding itself due to the current war.

The Seed Project Funding line relies purely on the donation made by its founder Karel Vietsch and does not rely on any other sources of funding. 12 years after it was established at Karel’s premature departure, the Foundation is left with a limited budget for new projects, with the effect that we will be able to fund just a small number of new projects in the coming period. For this reason starting from summer 2026 the board has adopted a stricter additional funding criterion, in addition to those previously identified, and has updated its list of criteria accordingly.

Staring from summer 2026 new project proposals must show a clear link with the community and/or the business of European National Research and Education Networks (NREN). Proposals must either include some activities involving NRENs or obtain support from (an) NREN about the development/test/deployment of the proposed technology or service, or in the absence of any of these, provide evidence that the results of the project will be of impact and value for the NRENs and their business. Such relevance and impact will be judged at the discretion of the Board, possibly in consultation with a relevant NREN community member.

Special Medal of Honour 2026

The Vietsch Foundation awards a special Vietsch Medal of Honour to URAN, the Ukrainian NREN

The Vietsch Foundation has awarded a special Vietsch Medal of Honour to URAN, the National Research and Education Network (NREN) of Ukraine, in recognition of its extraordinary commitment to keeping Ukraine’s research and education infrastructure operational throughout the ongoing war.

Unlike the traditional Vietsch Medal of Honour, which is awarded to an individual, this special medal honours an entire organisation. The trustees of the Vietsch Foundation unanimously decided to recognise the URAN team, led by Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi, for their exceptional dedication under extreme circumstances.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the URAN team has worked tirelessly—often around the clock—to ensure that connectivity and services for Ukrainian universities, schools, and research institutions remain available. Their work has enabled education to continue and research to progress, both of which are essential for the country’s resilience and future development.

“Despite air raids, attacks on energy infrastructure, and the daily realities of war, the URAN team has kept the network running without significant outages. Their commitment is nothing short of heroic,” said Pekka Kahkipuro, trustee of the Vietsch Foundation, who presented the medal at TNC26.

Immediately after the war began, and at the request of GÉANT, the Vietsch Foundation established a dedicated support mechanism for URAN. Many European NRENs have since contributed annually to sustain this support. The Foundation encourages NRENs to continue their contributions for as long as needed.

At TNC26, the GÉANT Humanitarian Support group also announced that individuals can now donate to URAN support via the Vietsch Foundation. Visitors to the Humanitarian Support booth at the conference are invited to contribute and will receive a small token of appreciation.

Kahkipuro emphasised the importance of maintaining education and research during prolonged conflict. He recalled giving a remote lecture to a Ukrainian university during the war:

“Even through the screen, I could feel the students’ eagerness to learn. This was only possible because URAN kept the infrastructure running.”

In accepting the medal Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi, director of URAN, said: “The URAN team is deeply moved that our work and resilience have been recognized with such an important medal. For us, this is a powerful sign that our lives, our efforts, and our thoughts matter to GEANT, Europe, and the entire community. This recognition, our ongoing work, and the very survival of the URAN team would have been impossible without the unwavering support of the GEANT community and the Veitsche Foundation. It is only because of this support that we can continue to serve the R&E community in Ukraine, provide GEANT services to universities and institutions, and maintain hope for peace in our country and across Europe.”

The Vietsch Foundation expresses its deep respect and gratitude to the entire URAN team for their unwavering service to the Ukrainian research

Medal of Honour 2026

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2026 Medal of Honour to Marko Bonač

The recipient of the 2026 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation is Marko Bonač, director of ARNES, the Slovenian national research and education network (NREN). The medal was presented to Marko on 9June 2026, during an award ceremony at the TNC opening plenary of TNC 2026 in Helsinki, Finland.

The cooperation between NRENs in Europe, under the TERENA and later GÉANT umbrella, has led to the strongest e-infrastructure for education and research in the world. It is one of the most successful examples of European collaboration. This cooperation is based on two very important elements: trust and cost sharing. The annual TNC conference is a very important element in building and maintaining trust. The cost-sharing element is based on a model that ensures a fair distribution of costs among the participating European NRENs, one per country. As you can appreciate, the development of that cost-sharing model was a daunting task.

The board of trustees of the Vietsch Foundation chose Marko Bonač out of a large group of nominees, including several ones from previous years. With today’s awarding of the Vietsch Medal of Honour, we recognise the importance of that cost-sharing model for our community, and we recognise the effort of the person who chaired this essential task for 14 years. He made sure the model was developed, discussed, adjusted, and refined until there was consensus that it shared the burden for the European NRENs in a fair and objective way.

“It’s been a real pleasure to award this year’s medal of Honour to someone who ,for overthirty years, has contributed so much for his country and for the good of the international community” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation.

In accepting the award Marko Bonač said: “I am grateful and happy to have been part of theTERENA and GÉANT community for the past 30 years. This period has been marked by outstanding collaboration among European NRENs, which has played a vital role in building and advancing the infrastructure for science and education. As the long-time director of ARNES, I am proud to have contributed to this shared story of connection, trust, and progress that has endured for more than three decades. I am also honoured to receive the Vietsch Foundation Medal for 2026.”

Marko Bonač has been a very valuable and committed member of the RARE/TERENA/DANTE/ GÉANT community for more than 30 years, serving in various governance roles and ensuring at all times that the voice of the smaller European countries was represented and heard. He is the Director of ARNES, the Slovenian national research and education network (NREN). Having already served as Secretary General of YUNAC, the Yugoslav network for academic community, he helped establish Arnes in 1992, a year after Slovenia had gained independence. Starting with a team of only a few, today he leads a thriving organisation shaping the research and education ecosystem of Slovenia, from connectivity to trust and identity and mobility service, to security, EuroHPC and Open Science.

Over the many years, Marko has been involved in many national and international projects. In the early 1990s, he led the research group for ‘Electronic directories’ (X.500) and also took part in some projects in the EUREKA framework (e.g. COSINE). Other projects he was involved in contributed to strategic forecasting, a safer internet, and tackling illegal content.

During this time, he was also involved in preparing proposals for the use of structural funds in Slovenia. As a lecturer in workshops and author of many articles, he tried to persuade the Slovenian authorities and general public that it would be beneficial to end the monopoly of Telekom Slovenia, to establish a competitive telecommunications market and to transpose corresponding EC Directives as soon as possible. And we see today, his persistence was successful.

Since 2003, he has been actively involved in the governance of TERENA, the various GN projects, and the GÉANT Association. He was a member of the GÉANT Board from 2014 to 2020, during which time he also served as co-chair of the Audit and Risk Advisory Committee.

Arguably his most influential and important role has been the one of Chair of the GÉANT Cost Sharing Committee, which he held for 14 years, starting in January 2007. His skills and personal commitment in navigating the challenging task was deeply appreciated by the members
ENDS

SILT Core – Delegation and Revocation Semantics for Federated Research Infrastructure

Funded in 2026 – SILT Core is a specification-focused project addressing a recognised gap in federated identity systems: the absence of portable, inspectable delegation and revocation semantics. The project defines a minimal, technology-agnostic layer for expressing authority, scope, and consent in a way that can be validated independently of application platforms. Through an initial proof-of-concept, SILT Core will deliver an open specification, machine-readable schemas, and a lightweight validator, contributing to more transparent and accountable governance across research and education infrastructure.

SciFlow text editor Integration to Open Journal System

Funded in 2026 – The project will develop, test, and roll out an in-built text editor for the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform from PKP, enabling journals to streamline production directly in OJS and strengthen the Open Access publishing infrastructure.

The project addresses a critical gap in the scholarly communication infrastructure: the absence of an integrated, standards-compliant editor within Open Journal Systems (OJS). Today, journal editors must rely on fragmented, external tools to produce final publication formats, resulting in inefficiencies, higher costs, and inconsistent quality. These are challenges that particularly burden small, volunteer-driven Diamond Open Access journals. By embedding the SciFlow Open Source text editor directly into OJS, the Project provides a sustainable, open, and interoperable solution that strengthens the open-access ecosystem.

To this end, the Göttingen State and University Library is working closely with the provider SciFlow.

INST-DSpace

Funded in 2026 – The project aims to expand the DSpace-CRIS data model so that instruments and facilities can be added to the snapshot for the institutional research activity. DSpace-CRIS is an increasingly popular open-source alternative to implement an institutional research information management system (RIMS/CRIS). With 54 instances from 21 different countries on the euroCRIS Directory of Research Information Systems (DRIS) at the time of writing, DSpace-CRIS is by far the most popular open-source software solution in the directory. This is because its expanded data model allows the main research entities (such as researchers, organisations, projects, publications, datasets, etc) to be effectively collected and cross-linked.

The INST-DSpace project plan includes the modelling of this new research entity in CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) by euroCRIS on the basis of the work done by the RDA PIDINST WG, its implementation in the DSpace-CRIS version under development by 4Science and its real-life testing by the Technical University of Hamburg via their DSpace-CRIS-based institutional CRIS TORE.

The recent announcement for the merger between DSpace and DSpace-CRIS means that this functionality will eventually become available to any institution currently operating a DSpace-based institutional repository.

By allowing institutions using DSpace-CRIS to showcase their research equipment and facilities, this development will deepen the implementation of Open Science in line with the Barcelona Declaration for Open Research Information.

NixOS Based Gateway for Remote Laboratories

Funded in 2025 – The project will provide an open-source NixOS-based gateway to help universities and research institutions in making their laboratories accessible on the Internet and in publishing them online. The gateway will package the full DecentraLabs remote access stack into a declarative, reproducible environment. DecentraLabs is building a decentralized ecosystem that enables universities and research centers to share and access online laboratories securely and transparently. The project combines blockchain protocols, online-lab software and higher-education infrastructure to allow laboratories to be published as digital assets, booked as time-bound services, and remunerated without a central gatekeeper. With support from the Vietsch Foundation, DecentraLabs will simplify provider onboarding by delivering reproducible deployments using NixOS and Docker that will be ready to accept eduGAIN connections. This ensures that a lab gateway can be set up in minutes, lowering the barrier for institutions worldwide to contribute their resources and join a sustainable, interoperable network where students, teachers and researchers can access laboratories directly with their institutional accounts.

DMARCaroni

Funded in 2025 – Email dates back over fifty years, but it is still one of the most widely used internet technologies. It is used for many official types of communication, but also for example for mission critical functions like resetting passwords and sending invoices. Metadata about email (who communicates when, with whom) is a strategic target.

Universities have massively shifted their email infrastructure to third party email providers, and thus share a lot of information about their students and staff involuntarily with these tech giants. With the increasing pressure of politics on academic freedom, and in the light of the current geopolitical situation as well as the known surveillance capabilities these providers are legally subject to, universities around the globe are starting to understand that such a dependency is unwise. This likely over time will mean a return to running ones own infrastructure as an academic community.

For that to work, the right technical setup needs to be in place. There is good software available to run servers to send, receive, store and distribute email – with protocols such as SMTP and IMAP. However, on top of that well-known stack meanwhile another layer of infrastucture has emerged to combat spam, phishing and spoofing of email. This is done with newish standards like SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

What is currently lacking in order for academia to run this infrastructure themselves is reliable free and open source software to properly manage the resulting information flows. This is the topic of DMARCaroni: a set of tools for processing DMARC reports and turning the wealth of information into actionable overviews and reports. DMARCaroni is written in Haskell, Rust and Elm. Within the scope of this project, the team will focus on a number of missing reporting capabilities (in particular to better understand spoofing attacks), improved data acquisition and deployment methods, and increasing accessibility.

Medal Award 2025

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2025 Medal of Honour to Cathrin Stöver.

The recipient of the 2025 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation is Cathrin Stöver, Chief Communications Officer of GÉANT. The medal was presented to Cathrin on 10 June 2025, during an award ceremony at the TNC opening plenary of TNC25 in Brighton, UK.

The board of trustees of the Vietsch Foundation chose Cathrin Stöver out of a large group of nominees, including several ones from previous years. The board recognised Cathrin’s successful long-term achievements and were particularly impressed by her contributions in connecting NRENs in Latin America and Africa as well as in strengthening and focusing the European community in her role as CCO at GÉANT, particularly vis-a-vis the European Commission where she succeeded in bringing EC-NREN relations to a higher level. The trustees also valued Cathrin Stöver’s role in the GÉANT CONNECT magazine and her championing of GÉANT’s yearly Women in STEM campaign.

“It’s been a real pleasure to award this year’s medal of Honour to a former colleague, who has been leading and motivating communities for a long time and who Karel Vietsch esteemed very much” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation.

In accepting the award Cathrin Stöver said: “I am honoured to receive the Vietsch Medal of Honour. I have very fond memories of working closely with Karel Vietsch. Karel’s high degree of organisation and his attention to community consensus-building always resonated very much with me and I cherish this award as a personal memory of Karel. I would also like to thank the Vietsch Foundation for their ongoing and unwavering championing of the Ukrainian NREN, URAN. This support is bringing out the best in our community and shows true NREN solidarity. This strong community spirit is the reason for the ongoing success of the global NREN model and I am happy, proud and at the same time humbled, to have been a part of it for so many years.”

Cathrin Stöver is Chief Communications Officer at GÉANT. She has 28 years of experience working in the European and global Research and Education networking community where she has been a consistent, reliable and active player in the European GÉANT projects contributing to their ongoing excellence. Cathrin has built NRENs as well as regional organisations and their backbone infrastructures in Latin America and in the African continent.

Over the past five years, Cathrin has led GÉANT and its membership through the changing European landscape of emerging new policies and resulting activities, raising early awareness and advising on the positioning of the organisation and the membership. . In her work, Cathrin focuses on mutual benefits and opportunities with a commitment to collaboration and knowledge sharing, as well as inclusive team building across cultures or continents always based on a foundation of mutual respect, partnership and trust.

Opening-Up Open Science Repositories: Development of an eduGAIN Interface for Secure Access to InvenioRDM

Funded in 2024 – The project of Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) intends to add eduGAIN as a federated authentication option and thus as a login possibility to InvenioRDM, the turn key research data management repository at TU Graz.

InvenioRDM has been started by CERN and is being further developed by CERN and many partners around the world. It is an open source repository software written in Python and Javascript. It offers a variety of functions, such as the ability to assign a permanent identifier (DOI), the use of controlled vocabularies to describe objects, communities to group records together, login options like `Login with Github` and many more.

The project brings together functionality, configuration and customisation options in the python package invenio-eduGAIN.

The Canute Tactile Commons: The universal tactile interface for public APIs for blind developers and researchers

Funded in 2024 – This project by Bristol Braille Technology CIC intends to better open up publicly accessible APIs to blind developers and academics by creating a universal language of spacial, tactile interfaces that run on novel electromechanical displays as well as being embossed to paper.

Just as common land that is only reached by jumping a stile is inaccessible by wheelchair, so sighted assumptions in public APIs makes much of the Internet commons inaccessible for blind developers and academics. This project will use a grid of electromechanical cells to present multidimensional data — tabular, vectors, graphs — as refreshing patterns of physical dot. Bristol Braille Technology and their partners in the Bristol University Computer Science Department will develop abstractions for tactile imagery as a reusable library of functions.

The aim is to greatly increase the inclusion of blind developers and academics in the future of a commonly owned Internet by working with tabular and spacial data sets, representing that data in a way that makes sense in tactile form in the same way they they are expected to make sense in a visual way. The output will be available publicly for use on Bristol Braille Technology’s own Canute hardware, on future full page tactile displays, and in paper form via the thousands of existing Braille embossers.

Erik Huizer joins the Board of the Vietsch Foundation

The Vietsch Foundation is honoured to welcome Erik Huizer in its Board of Trustees.

A Senior Advisor at GÉANT, Europe’s leading collaboration on e-infrastructure and services for research and education, Erik joined the Vietsch Foundation on the first of December 2024. From 2017 to November 2024 he was the CEO of GÉANT.

He is a member of various advisory committees and has held many non-executive board positions with organisations related to Internet, technology, media, research and education.

From 2012-2017 he was CTO at SURFnet, the Dutch national academic and research network.

From 2008 – 2012 Erik Huizer was Managing Director (Algemeen Directeur) for the Information Sciences and Space technology division at TNO (The Netherlands organization for applied scientific research).

From 1988 – 2000 Erik also worked at SURFnet as a project and (later) program manager. He chaired various RARE (later Terena) WGs. He was a member of the Terena technical committee. From 2000 – 2015 he was a part time Professor Internet Applications. Most recently at Utrecht University and before that at the faculty of computer science of the University Twente. He remains a research associate at Utrecht University.

For over 30 years he has been involved in education and research networking, Internet standardization and Internet governance. In the nineties he was Area Director for Applications of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and a member of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). From 1995 till 1999 member of the Internet Architecture Board. Responsible for restructuring of the Internet standards process (IETF). From 1999 till 2001 Chair of the Internet Research task force. From 2001 onwards, he had various roles in ICANN and IGF.

Erik chaired the Dutch IPv6 Taskforce from 2002-2017. The taskforce created awareness, build technical capacity and helped ISPs, SMEs and the government to introduce IPv6 in the Netherlands.

For his contributions to the Internet he has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2015 he was honored with the title of Dutch ICT personality of the year. He has been teaching at various developing countries workshops on Internet policy and technology. He is a TEDx speaker.

Valentino Cavalli

Chairman of the Board of Trustees

Valentino Cavalli is chair of the board since the start of the Vietsch Foundation in 2014. He is an experienced leader in IT, computer networking technologies and policies, project management and acquisition. His management skills include strategy and policy development, business and administration. He has an extensive network of relations with partners internationally.

Valentino graduated in philosophy from the University of Urbino in Italy in 1987. With interests in logic programming and Artificial Intelligence, he followed post-graduation studies after which, in 1989, he started working as software analyst and project manager for Omega Generation, an IT start-up.

Valentino moved to the Netherlands in 1999, where he worked for the Trans European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA, later GÉANT). He was hired by Karel Vietsch initially as Project Development Officer. After a few years working on Research and Development projects he became Chief Technical Officer and later succeeded Karel as general manager of the Association, a function he retained until he left the organisation in 2016. Valentino has served as Open Science officer at LIBER the European Association of Research Libraries and as Strategy and Innovation Officer at EGI.eu.

Erik Huizer

Member of the Board of Trustees

Erik Huizer is a Senior Advisor at GÉANT, Europe’s leading collaboration on e-infrastructure and services for research and education. From 2017 to November 2024 he was the CEO of GÉANT.

He is a member of various advisory committees and has held many non-executive board positions with organisations related to Internet, technology, media, research and education.

From 2012-2017 he was CTO at SURFnet, the Dutch national academic and research network.

Erik chaired the Dutch IPv6 Taskforce from 2002-2017. The taskforce created awareness, build technical capacity and helped ISPs, SMEs and the government to introduce IPv6 in the Netherlands.

Towards enriched open scholarly information – integrating DSpace repositories and OpenAlex

Funded in 2024 – The University of Cambridge is partnering with 4Science to deliver this project, which will integrate two key systems within the global scholarly ecosystem, the DSpace repository (https://www.dspace.org/) and OpenAlex (https://openalex.org/), a free and open catalogue of the world’s scholarly research system.

Using OpenAlex’s open API (Application Programming Interface), this integration will allow for the quick import of relevant research and scholarly (meta)data into DSpace repositories, helping institutions to improve the quality and completeness of their records of research outputs and streamlining researcher publication and reporting workflows by providing accurate and relevant information in automated ways. This integration will also save time for researchers and librarians, who would be able to dedicate time to more research-oriented tasks.

Reusing the data in OpenAlex would help institutions to improve the quality and completeness of data in institutional repositories and strengthen the wider open access network by increasing the number of versions and access points to content. Moreover, the availability of multiple (open access) copies of the materials can provide a more effective strategy for long-term preservation.

Final Report of the SIMULACRO project

SIMULACRO VR online app

Vietsch Foundation Final Report

1 Introduction

This report reflects the work developed and committed to in the agreement signed between the University of Vigo, Faculty of Communications, and the Vietsch Foundation on 29-30 May 2024.

The Vietsch Foundation’s contribution to the project supported the purchase of 5 laptops and the audiovisual campaign for the dissemination of Simulacro. This document analyses the impact of this contribution on the overall development of the project.

2 Development of acquired commitments

The purchase of the 5 laptops made it possible to organize a flexible system of access to the tool through VR glasses at a key moment, as it facilitated testing with students, teachers and even members of the Vietsch Foundation, whose opinions and ideas were incorporated between June and July into the new version of Simulacro, which was compiled recently (Simulacro 1.1). The laptops, together with the VR glasses and auxiliary material, will be integrated into the methodological development of several subjects in the Faculty during the academic year 2024/25.

The Vietsch Foundation also participates in the co-financing of an audiovisual campaign directed by the project coordinator, Oswaldo García, and includes the recording of interviews with key people in the development of the project, the development of the graphic identity of the application and the design and execution of a campaign on social networks.

3 Conclusions

The participation of the Vietsch Foundation has contributed to the fact that Simulacro is now presented as a tool with the capacity to be integrated into the school’s curricula and with a very accessible learning curve that ensures the correct implementation of the tool. It has also contributed directly, through the financing of hardware, to facilitate the implementation process, as well as the development, testing and improvement of the application. On the other hand, the communication campaign has helped to make the academic community aware of the existence of the application and to develop an invitation system for members outside the academic community and institutions associated with the audiovisual sector.

Medal Award 2024

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2024 Medal of Honour to Christian Grimm.

The recipient of the 2024 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation is Christian Grimm, Chief Executive Officer of DFN, the research and education networking (NREN) organisation of Germany. The medal was presented to Christian on 13 June 2024, during an award ceremony at the closing plenary of TNC 2024, the leading European networking conference organised by GÉANT.

The medal is awarded annually to people who have made a contribution of lasting value to the research and development of advanced Internet technology aimed to support science, research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation recognised the exceptional value of Christian’s role in the restructuring of research and education networking in Europe and the merger of TERENA and DANTE with the establishment of the GÉANT Association. The merger is a great success, as is reflected in the successful GÉANT projects as well as in further collaboration with the EU and between NRENs. Christian Grimm was formerly chair of the GÉANT Association and he shaped the young organisation with a great deal of commitment, dedication and empathy. His five years at the head of the GÉANT Board have laid the foundations for this success and the ever growing trust between the NREN’s. The whole Community will benefit from this for a very long time to come.

“This year we received a large number of very valuable nominations and we had a tough time in making our choice. We selected Christian Grimm because of the undisputed impact of his achievement on research and education networking at the European as well as international/global level” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation.

In accepting the award Christian Grimm said: “Since I started at DFN I have been able to experience the great passion and spirit of collaboration in the European NREN community. The fact that I had the privilege to contribute to GÉANT’s success story in its founding years still fills me with great joy today. I am very proud to accept this medal of honour, not only for myself, but for the whole Board of Directors. I also see it as recognition of what executives and staff of the GÉANT office achieved during the foundation period.”

Christian Grimm is Chief Executive Officer of the German National Research and Education Network (Verein zur Förderung eines Deutschen Forschungsnetzes e. V. – DFN-Verein). Christian joined DFN in 2009 and was appointed to his current position in 2011. In 2013 Christian was elected to the Board of Directors of DANTE Ltd. in Cambridge, UK. From this position he helped drive the merger of DANTE with the TERENA Association in Amsterdam, NL. This process led to the formation of the Dutch GÉANT Association in 2014. Christian was elected to its founding Board of Directors and served as Chairman of the Board from 2015 to 2020. Christian is active in various boards and committees both in German academia and in research and education networking organisations worldwide. Prior to DFN, Christian was Head of Research and Development and member of the directorate at the Regional Computing Centre for Lower Saxony (RRZN), one of the largest Tier 2 HPC centres in Germany at that time. In parallel, he was appointed Assistant Professor for computer networks at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität in Hanover. He holds a Diploma in Electrical Engineering and a Doctoral Degree in Information Technology.

Simulacro Project

Funded in 2024 –

The project is an interactive online environment using a virtual set to to simulate audiovisual learning and creation processes. The environment consists of a virtual TV studio with three sets, to interactively manage lighting and filming schemes, based on the following functionality/usability scenario: five users with Quest 3 virtual reality glasses take on the roles of cinematographer, director, and three camera operators. Each user occupies the space through an avatar that allows them to move through the space and to modify the position and configuration of different light sources, as well as the cameras. In the latter case, control parameters related to the basic principles of photography are integrated, interacting consistently from a technical standpoint with the space and the arranged light sources. Additionally, these users can communicate with each other through the virtual space.

AppIntMeet Project

Funded in 2023 –

The project developed an innovative way to embed external tools into eduMEET, a web-conferencing tool created by the GÉANT community. eduMEET has proven itself as a secure alternative to tools like Zoom or WebEx, in that it is based on WebRTC and users do not need to install additional software. The AppIntMeet solution allows a participant with the appropriate rights, to open an external webpage for all participants. The webpage appears as a separate box within the eduMEET layout, just like screen sharing. All participants can immediately interact with the external platform. Each participant can decide, if to full screen the tool or work in the eduMEET layout, seeing all videos while working in the tool. The project result allows all participants to immediately interact with the chosen external tool without leaving the videoconferencing window. The AppIntMeet extension offers wide flexibility, allowing to open online tools like whiteboards, polls, doodles, etc.

Sergi Figuerola

Member of the Board of Trustees

Sergi Figuerola serves as General Director of the i2CAT Foundation since January 2024. He was previously Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the same organisation. He holds an MSc and a PhD in Telecommunication Engineering from the Theory and Signal Communications department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Additionally, Dr. Figuerola completed the Program for Management Development (PDG-2019) at IESE Business School and obtained a Master’s degree in Project Management from La Salle (Universitat Ramon Llull – URL).

He also holds positions as a Board Member of the Spanish Digital Association, AMETIC, and the Catalan Telecom association, Telecos.cat. Within i2CAT, he provides strategic leadership and vision while he directly supervises he R&D, Scientific and Innovation Directors. Over the past two decades, Dr. Figuerola has managed several areas in i2CAT, from research to innovation, valorization, EU strategy and business sectors, and has fulfilled pivotal roles in research projects, having served as Project Coordinator three times, such as in the 5GCity 5GPPP H2020 project, and Technical Manager in the FP7 GEYSERS project among others. He has participated in more than 50 peer reviewed scientific papers, acted as TPC from different conferences (i.e. OFC), ICT projects reviewer, chair of working groups and speaker and moderator in several conferences . His primary research interests lie in the domains of 5G/6G, Next Generation Internet, New Space, and Open Innovation.

Medal Award 2023

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2023 Medal of Honour to Arjan Xhelaj.

The recipient of the 2022 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation is Arjan Xhelaj, founder, Director General and Chairman of the Governance Board of RASH, the Academic Network of Albania.

The medal is awarded annually to people who have made a contribution of lasting value to the research and development of advanced Internet technology aimed to support science, research and higher education. The medal was presented to Arjan on 6 June, during the award ceremony at TNC 2023, the leading European networking conference organised by GÉANT.

Arjan Xhelaj has been responsible for establishing the RASH academic network from scratch and developing it through a decade of successful achievements to a fully functional organisation, serving the academic network and users of Albania and representing the Albanian research and education community in international fora and projects. In the spirit of the award, which recognises individuals who have proved their organizational skills and whose efforts have led to the creation of institutions or services of long-term value, “Arjan Xhelaj was selected as the most deserving recipient, in a list of very valuable candidates, some of whom were nominated by various communities” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation. Explaining the rationale for the choice, Valentino recalled that he “first met Arjan in 2011, during a meeting in Italy, where he and Karel Vietsch had been invited to advise on the consultancy project that paved the way to the creation of the research and education network of Albania. Arjan proved since then to be a very competent, strong and motivated player, and asked very soon to become a member of TERENA. The Vietsch Foundation board unanimously recognised the value of his commitment and successful achievements throughout the years. Board members are also particularly excited that the 2023 medal of honour has been awarded to the host of TNC this year”.

In accepting the award Arjan said:

“It is with great honor and gratitude that I accept the Vietsch Foundation’s recognition for my work in the last decade in building the Albanian NREN, RASH. I want to express my sincere thanks to the Vietsch Foundation for their unwavering support for the scientific community and their dedication to promoting research and innovation. I also want to extend my appreciation to my fellow researchers, my staff and colleagues who have contributed to my work. Research and innovation are at the core of human progress. They drive advancements in science, technology, and society, and have the power to transform our world for the better. The Vietsch Foundation’s commitment to supporting research and innovation is commendable. Their philanthropic efforts have made a significant impact on advancing research. Their unwavering support has enabled researchers like me to pursue our passion for knowledge and make meaningful contributions to our work. Innovation is the engine that propels research forward. It involves not only generating new ideas but also translating them into practice that benefit society. However, research and innovation are not without challenges. They require perseverance, resilience, and dedication to overcome obstacles and setbacks. In conclusion, I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Vietsch Foundation for this prestigious recognition. It inspires me to continue my pursuit of excellence in research and innovation.”

Arjan Xhelaj is the founder, and currently Director General and Chairman of the Governance Board of RASH, the Academic Network of Albania. He is an experienced institutional leader with a proven track record of working in government, public administration, industry and International Relations. The Researcher and Innovator has strong experience in the European Commission as a Member of various governing and advisory Boards. He has studied Engineering in Applied Physics and Information Technology and worked as PhD researcher in Biophysics at Frankfurt am Main University, Germany.

Andrew Cormack, 16-4-1963 13-4-2023

The Vietsch Foundation mourns the death of our dear friend and esteemed colleague Andrew Cormack, who has left us too early yesterday. Andrew has been a member of the Board of Trustees since the 6th of June 2016, and we were blessed with his competence, dedication and invaluable contributions. He was known to many of us from his outstanding work in networking security and privacy, and he was a considerate and gentle person with the gift of bringing people together. Andrew was awarded the first Medal of Honour given by the Vietsch Foundation in 2015 and had been a good friend of Karel Vietsch.

Andrew is leaving a huge void in our community and in our board. He will be sorely missed.

Jean-Claude Guédon

Member of the Board of Trustees

Jean-Claude Guédon is a retired professor from the Université de Montréal. He received his Ph. D. in
history of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974. He taught at the Université de
Montréal from 1973 until his retirement in December 2017, first in the Institut d’histoire et de sociopolitique
des sciences, and later in Littérature comparée. He was a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins
University (1975), Université Louis-Pasteur (Strasbourg, 1983), École des Chartes (Paris, 2001),
Université Lyon-II (2003), University of São Paulo in 2008, University of Amsterdam in 2010 and the
Politecnico of Turin in 2011.

The distinctions he received include being one of the three laureates of the Charles-Hélou international
prize for francophonie in 1996. He was named « Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lecturer » for the 100-year
anniversary of the MLA (1998), Fleck Fellow at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2002 and 2003). He
chaired the Advisory Board of the Canadian library consortium CNSLP (now known as CRKN). He
received the award for outstanding achievement, Computing in the Arts and Humanities, from the
Society for the Digital Humanities in 2005. In 2001 and early 2002, he participated to the meeting and
the drafting of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. He was a member of the Information Sub-Board of
the Open Society Foundations between 2002 and 2006. Between 2006 and 2009, he acted as vice-
President for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and the Social Sciences. He began acting as
expert for the European Commission in 2008. Since 2011, he has been a trustee of the Nexa Center
(Internet and Society) of the Politecnico in Turin. Between 2017 and 2019, he was Chair and
(ultimately) rapporteur of Expert Group on the Future of Scholarly Communication and Publishing
systems for the European Commission. In 2021, he was awarded a doctorate honoris causa from the
Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Mendoza, Argentina). He joined the Board of the Vietsch Foundation
as member at large in December 2023.

In 1991, he started an electronic scholarly journal, Surfaces, the first in Canada, that was published
until 2000, and is still accessible on the site of Érudit (https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/surfaces/).

His publications include three books and about 140 other publications, most of which of a scholarly
nature.

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