Category: News

Medal Award 2022

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2022 Medal of Honour to Natalia Manola.

The recipient of the 2022 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation is Natalia Manola, Chief Executive Officer of OpenAIRE.

Natalia Manola speaks at TNC after she received the Medal from Antoinette Vietsch

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 Natalia on 14 June, during the award ceremony at TNC2022, the leading European networking conference organised by GÉANT.

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, “the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation chose to award the 2022 medal of honour to Natalia, as a recognition of her continuous and successful dedication to management of OpenAIRE across many years of project activity, making it now an independent stable and sustainable legal entity” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation, explaining the rationale for the choice.

In accepting the award Natalia said: “Building OpenAIRE from scratch with a dedicated group of visionaries has been a challenging yet rewarding experience. In OpenAIRE the spirit  has been, is and will be about “we”,  about our collective goals and accomplishments. A spirit that has largely contributed to its success. The  Vietsch Foundation medal is a great honor  for me and for all my colleagues who diligently work to make Open Science and OpenAIRE an integral part of the research and development ecosystem. A great incentive to do even more.”

Natalia Manola is the CEO of OpenAIRE (www.openaire.eu), a pan European e-Infrastructure supporting scholarly communication and Open Science Europe since 2009. She is also a research associate in “Athena” Research and Innovation Center and in the University of Athens, Department of Informatics & Telecommunications. She holds a Physics degree from the University of Athens, and an MS in Electrical and Computing Engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has several years of employment as a Software Engineer and Architect employed in the Bioinformatics commercial sector. She has expertise in Open Science policies and implementation, having served in the EOSC Executive Board (2018-20, chairing the Working Group on Skills and Training) and in the Open Science Policy Platform (2016-18), an EC High-Level Advisory Group to provide advice about the development and implementation of open science policy in Europe. Her research interests include the topics of e-Infrastructures development and management, scientific data management, data curation and validation, text and data mining and research analytics. Natalia has also served in the EC Future Emerging Technology (FET) Advisory Group (2013-2017).

ENDS

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks. For details visit: https://www.vietsch-foundation.org

Vietsch Foundation and GÉANT project to support Ukrainian Research and Education Network

Funded in 2022 – The Vietsch Foundation and the GÉANT Association have started a project to support URAN, the research and education network of Ukraine and a member of GÉANT.

As the war in Ukraine goes on URAN will need our support and help more than ever, not just to survive but to stay as safe as possible and where possible to maintain and rebuild.

GÉANT and Europe’s NRENs will donate funds to primarily address URAN’s cash flow challenges and help to ensure URAN’s survival as an NREN. Whilst the war has heavily affected URAN’s many users who are currently unable to operate themselves and are therefore unable to pay for URAN services, URAN faces ongoing operational costs and is therefore at severe risk itself.

The funds donated to the Vietsch Foundation will be reserved only for the purpose of this project. The reservation is bound to the proposals as formulated by URAN and GÉANT in the pursuit of the objectives stated in the project agreement, and thus help to preserve the knowledge and skills of the Ukrainian NREN.

eduDNS Project

Funded in 2022 – The Vietsch Foundation announces a new grant to fund the project eduDNS, a Dynamic DNS service for Academia, eduDNS was relayed to the Vietsch Foundation by GÉANT through its Innovation Programme.

Nowadays, more and more services are dynamically deployed in Cloud environments. Usually, the services hosted on virtual machines in Cloud are accessible only via IP addresses or pre-configured hostnames given by the target Cloud providers, making it difficult to provide them with meaningful domain names. Dynamic DNS services exist to alleviate this problem, but none of them is scoped to the Academic realm.

The eduDNS project will provide a universal, vendor-independent Dynamic DNS support for research and education users. Service owners will log in the eduDNS portal via eduTEAMS, register meaningful, memorable hostnames (e.g. service-portal.vo.edudns.eu), assign the hostnames to their servers then provide access to their services via the hostnames.

eduDNS will simplify the deployment of services that are dynamically deployed in Cloud infrastructures. It removes the obstacles of changing IP addresses of services in Cloud at every deployment and enables obtaining SSL certificates for the hostnames. Service providers can migrate services from local servers to Cloud or from a Cloud site to another without noticing users from the change.

The project started at the beginning of 2022 and will end in Summer 2022 with a prototype of eduDNS service deployed at IISAS (Institute of Informatics, Slovak Academy of Sciences) and IFCA (Instituto de Física de Cantabria).

AALD Project

Funded in 2021 – The Vietsch Foundation announces a new project grant on Academic Achievement and Learning Diaries (AALD).

Epistemic cognition, like the justification of knowledge, is a growing theme in learning analytics. It is highly topical in the era of MOOCs and conflicting resources of knowledge.

AALD aims to increase the scientific understanding of students’ epistemic thinking related to learning analytics applications. This information is vital for making advancements in designing new applications to measure and monitor student success.

The application used to record student experience is a structured learning diary that allows higher education students to prepare for classes, make notes, and reflect on their learning experience afterward. Our research expands the dataset to include student interviews, student register data, and questionnaires (pre-test, post-test, and two delayed post-test questionnaires).

AALD contributes to publishing two scientific open access articles, a public web page describing the structured diary tool contents, and main findings summary of the project. In addition, a public presentation will be given as part of a relevant conference. The project timeline is from Oct 2021 to Jan 2022. Publications’ should be open after the review processes later in 2022.

For more information: Ville Kivimäki, University of Helsinki, ville.kivimaki@helsinki.fi

 

Public version of the Science Checker website released

The science-checker.opscidia.com is now publicly available.

Funded in 2020/21 – The Science Checker project built a free to access search engine, developing a novel approach that verifies scientific claims by means of analysing the pertinent and available scientific literature.

In the words of the developers the Science Checker:

– facilitates access and exploration of scientific literature.
– illustrates the need to analyze several studies in order to get a better idea of the state of scientific knowledge on a subject.
– illustrates that Open Access, combined with the right artificial intelligence tools, can facilitate the transmission of knowledge outside the academic world.

The grant was awarded to Opscidia, a startup which develops artificial intelligence tools that make use of open access articles to accelerate innovation, promote sound policies and help providing rigorous information to the general public. 

Medal Award 2021

The Vietsch Foundation awards the 2021 Medal of Honour to Laurel Haak.

Laurel L. Haak, Founding Executive Director of ORCID, is the recipient of the 2021 medal of honour of the Vietsch Foundation.

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 2021 award ceremony was held online on the 22nd of June, during a plenary session of TNC2021, the leading European networking conference organised by GÉANT.

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, the choice fell on Laure as the best in a range of very qualified nominees. “Laure led the development of ORCID from a concept to a global, community-led, non-profit service used by more than ten million researchers. ORCID IDs are now the essential foundation for research processes in and between institutions, funders, and publishers: enabling the creation, testing, sharing and finding of new knowledge,” said Andrew Cormack, Member of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation, explaining the rationale for the award.

Laure currently is the Founder and CEO of Mighty Red Barn where her work centers on trust-building to foster communities, through practice areas of digital infrastructure and identity, governance and decision frameworks, product strategy and practice. She also serves as a volunteer mentor for the SCORE small business start-up program. 

Prior to her work at ORCID, Laure was the Chief Science Officer at Discovery Logic, Inc. (acquired by Thomson Reuters and now part of Clarivate), providing workforce analysis, metrics, benchmarking, and data visualizations for funding agencies and academic institutions, including the development of the electronic Scientific Portfolio Assistant, which combined back-end database ingest, machine learning, and expert analytics to transform agency approaches to program evaluation.

As a program officer for the US National Academies, Laure managed expert panels and the development and publication of research policy reports for the US government, academic, and association stakeholders, including reports on interdisciplinary research, international students, and women in academia. This work built on her experience as editor of Science’s Next Wave Postdoc Network at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she helped to build a community of practice around postdoctoral workforce policy and supported the launch of the National Postdoctoral Association. 

Laure received a B.S. and an M.S. in Biology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the US National Institutes of Health.

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Haak

ENDS

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks. For details visit: https://www.vietsch-foundation.org

Targeted Online – A publication on how AdTech works

 

Funded in 2020 – The Vietsch Foundation funded the publication of “Targeted Online”, a handbok by the European Digital Rights (EDRi), an association of civil and human rights organisations from across Europe.

The web has become a place where visiting a webpage triggers many effects elsewhere, where advertising technology results in a surveillance ecosystem. Yet people still think of the ‘friendly’ world wide web of the nineties. The “Targeted Onlie” handbook is intended for curious internet users who want to understand the internet’s dominant business model, how tech companies use (and abuse) data, why some ads are eerily creepy and others so foolishly wrong. The handbook explains how online advertising works, and why a reform of the entire online advertising industry is urgently needed.

The “Targeted Online” handbook can be dowloaded here. For more informtion visit the EDRI website.

Lígia Maria Ribeiro steps down as Trustee of the Vietsch Foundation

 

Starting from the 1st of January 2021, Lígia Maria Ribeiro steps down as trustee of the Vietsch Foundation. Lígia is Principal Researcher at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto and set on the Board of Directors of the European University Information Systems Organization (EUNIS) until 2020. Since joining the Vietsch Foundation Board of Trustees in January 2018, Lígia has contributed enormously to the relation with EUNIS and to the establishment of many successful projects.

In saying farewell to her fellow trustees Lígia said “I want to express my satisfaction for having had the opportunity to be part of the Vietsch Foundation’s Board of Trustees over these three years.”

The Vietsch Foundation expresses many thanks to Lígia in return and wishes her all the best with her retirement.

 

Pekka Kähkipuro and Kathleen Shearer new Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation

In 2020 the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation was extended with two new members whose important role in international research education and technology is widely recognised. Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director of COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) joined the Foundation in August. In October, Pekka Kähkipuro, Chief Information Officer at Brunel University London became the seventh member of the Board of Trustees.

Valentino Cavalli, chair of the Vietsch Foundation said “We’ve had a strategic goal of reaching out to new and wider communities for some time and I’m extremely pleased that Pekka and Kathleen accepted the Board’s invitation to become part of the Foundation. With their addition, the Board has greatly increased its range of expertises and strengthened its reach to research areas in Europe and beyond, in an impressive way”. Kathleen and Pekka have been appointed as member at large for an initial term of three years.

EMREX project

The Vietsch Foundation announces a new grant to CSC for a project to expand the EMREX network to the EU and beyond.

EMREX is a solution for transferring student data internationally in a machine-readable way. It consists of two parts: the technical solution and the international network (EMREX user group – EUG) enabling and developing the activities. EMREX originated as an EU-funded project 2015-2017, aiming to simplify and increase the quality of the credit transfer process after a student exchange. At present, EMREX is operational in a number of countries in Europe. It is a technical solution used to securely exchange educational data between students and third parties, for example higher education institutions (HEIs) or potential employers. In this way, EMREX can facilitate student mobility and decrease the administrative burden of student exchanges for the institutions. EMREX uses an open source technical solution, through which different kinds of educational data can be transferred, be it transcript of records or entire diplomas.

The Vietsch Foundation grant will serve two objectives:

  • Industrializing the EMREX registry and reviewing the ELMO standard
  • Dissemination of EMREX services and building the EMREX brand

This will help EMREX to make a step-change towards a self-standing service which creates value to students and organizations in Europe and also globally.

Science Checker Project

Funded in 2020/21 – The Science Checker project built a free to access search engine, developing a novel approach that verifies scientific claims by means of analysing the pertinent and available scientific literature. The science-checker.opscidia.com is now publicly available.

The subject of fake news is a very topical one. With social networks, and the advances of artificial intelligence, it is increasingly easier to create fake news and make them circulate quicker and quicker. Health and sciences are particularly nasty topic for fake news. Scam medicine, and worrisome information circulate, often based on absolutely no scientific facts. The current context of Covid19 pandemic has made the need to tackle this crisis in the scientific information even more serious. 

The grant was awarded to Opscidia, a startup which develops artificial intelligence tools that make use of open access articles to accelerate innovation, promote sound policies and help providing rigorous information to the general public. Thanks to the Vietsch Foundation grant, Opscidia will build a prototype online application that allows to check scientific fake news. This prototype will consist in different types of indicators based on the analysis of large volumes of scientific articles. These indicators will be easy to understand in order for the non-specialists to form quickly a good idea of whether an information is backed by the scientific literature, is under debate, or is totally groundless.

Medal Award 2020

The Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour is awarded annually to individuals or teams that have developed new ideas or demonstrated sustained organisational skills and whose efforts have led to the creation of institutions or services of enduring value. 

This year, the Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation are thrilled to announce that they have unanimously selected two outstanding individuals whose dedication and commitment have contributed enormously to the community.

The 2020 Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour recipients are Erik Kikkenborg and Bartłomiej Idzikowski.

Andrew Cormack, member of the Board of Trustees explains the rationale behind this year’s award. “For many years, Erik and Bartek have led the team that broadcasts and records talks from the TNC conferences. Thanks to their work many thousands of people from around the world have been able to hear about advances in European research networking and join that community, even when geographical constraints meant they could not attend the conferences in person.

Providing high-quality video streams from a wide variety of locations, often over temporary networks that are installed only for the duration of the conference, requires a particular mix of human and technical skills. Everyone who has presented at TNC, attended the conference remotely, or watched the recordings afterwards, has reason to be grateful to them.”

In the past few years, they have introduced innovative solutions at TNC combining artistic graphics, audio and video design with cutting edge technologies: high resolution, advanced audio, big range of cameras (including on a crane), higher number of screens, dynamic content (including bio info, sponsors details, social media feedback or clock).

Erik Kikkenborg

Erik Kikkenborg is the NORDUnet Media Services Manager, working on the organisation and distribution of cloud-based hosted video services. He is also the technical project coordinator of a vast number of NORDUnet, DeIC, SUNET,  NeIC, GÉANT activities and TNC. For more than 20 years  Erik has been active in audio visual and communications technology, from technician and project coordinator to manager and consultant on video communications, learning platforms and technology, online video and live streaming. For the past 10 years Erik’s primary focus has been collaboration with Nordic and International Research and Education institutions in the area of online platforms for learning and collaboration, in the context of European and global projects under the GÉANT Event Team, GÉANT (eduCONF), TERENA (NRENum), Global CEO Forum (GVA), (GRTC), asi@connect and Up2University (Up2U).

Erik’s professional interests comprise the exploration of the potential of video as a way of communication in education with a focus on new tools and technologies. Currently he is working on how to change the educational landscape in developing countries applying online education platforms.

Bartłomiej Idzikowski

Bartlomiej Idzikowski graduated from Poznan University of Technology in 2003 (Computing Science – Computer Networks and Distributed Systems). He became PSNC employee in the organisation’s Network Department. His research interests focus on video- and web-conferencing, high resolution video systems (4K, 8K), web-based applications, streaming technologies, network management and traffic monitoring. Bartłomiej’s professional background includes long-term cooperation within different European and national projects, such as GN2, GN3, GN3plus, GN4-1, GN4-2, GN4-3, 6NET, Phosphorus, Porta Optica Study, VISIONAIR, ImmersiaTV and Immersify. He was a member of the TNC programme committee in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and member of the TERENA NRENum.net task force. Currently, he is the Task Leader of the eduMEET / eduTURN task in GÉANT, technical coordinator of TNC, coordinator of the scientific TV team (Pionier TV) and steering committee member of the Special Interest Group Multi Media.

 

ENDS 

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks. For details visit: https://www.vietsch-foundation.org

 

 

New project: “Free and Open Source: Law, policy and practice” edited by Amanda Brock

The second edition of “Free and Open Source: Law, policy and practice” edited by Amanda Brock, has been published by Oxford University Press, as an “open access title” with pdf, html and e-reader freely available on an attribution basis, thanks to the generous funding of the Vietsch foundation.

The book is available for download, Open Access, as well as in printed format by Oxford University Press at this OUP link.

When we decided to fund this project we were particularly attracted by what Amanda Brock, told us: “ having managed to persuade an amazing group of contributors to write chapters for the second edition, we will create what I believe will be one of the most important collaborations in open source in 2020. It’s great that the legal and other advisory and support communities around open source, have been willing to pull together and commit their time to create this work. We will be going beyond the European slant of the first edition to a global viewpoint with authors from the US, including Stephen Walli and Ross Gardler on community and governance, Mark Radcliffe on Blockchain and McCoy Smith on copyright. All areas of IP will be covered. Miriam Ballhausen, will pick up on copyright litigation considering recent actions in her home country, Germany and Canonical’s Jilayne Lovejoy will write about contribution agreements. On the patent front, as well as an update of the existing chapter on Patent litigation from the Origin team, Peter Langley and Colm McKernan and Malcolm Bain’s introduction to patents, we will be joined by Knut Blind writing on standard essential patents and his recent report from the Commission. Pam Chesteck is of course covering trade marks while Carlo Piano considers competition and antitrust issues.

Mirko Böhme will explain the economic of open source and Andre Katz will look at All Things Open and open hardware. The Linux Foundation’s Shane Coughlan will write on Open Chain and Kate Stewart on SPDX while Redhat’s Richard Fontana and David Levine will write on Cloud. Iain Mitchell will look at public sector and Open Forum Europe’s Sachiko Muto public policy.

As well as editing, I will be looking at commercial and operational models in open source.

It will be an incredibly practical and useful text for lawyers, open source offices and people working on compliance, suitable for academics and those working at the code face.

The icing on the cake for me as editor of this book is to know that the book will be available to all through open access thanks to the Veitsch Foundation.

Look out for further updates on the book status over the next few months.”

DKS and CrypTech Integration Software Available

In partnership with the Vietsch Foundation, Diamond Key Security (DKS) is excited to make available under a permissive BSD clause 3 open-source license software, software installation, and related documentation to enable DKS and CrypTech solutions to integrate with and support Windows networking environments.  

 

Integration of the DKS solution and the underlying CrypTech technology extends the reach of the open-source solution to a wide array of possibilities and expands the opportunities for further research and leveraging of the open-source software.

The installation documentation provides information and instructions so that the software can be installed in a Windows network environment for either usage for signing by a Windows Certificate Authority (CA) (for various applications like DNS) or for a developers utilizing Diamond-HSM solutions or CrypTech solutions.

Development of a Proposal for a Trusted Student Identification Framework

Funded in 2019 – The Vietsch Foundation funds a study by the European Campus Card Association (ECCA) that will encompass requirements for cross-border trusted student eID credentials, and provide recommendations for a trusted student eID framework to support the provision of secure identification and authentication on a cross-border basis in Europe.

The study started on 10 September 2019 and will end in May 2020 with the publication of a report surveying state of the art and business aspects and issuing recommendations for the establishment of a cross-border Student eID Project.

Medal award 2019

The 2019 Medal of Honour was awarded to Claudio Allocchio, senior technical officer for advanced applications and security at GARR, for the demonstrated achievements and long-lasting benefit he contributed to the research and education networking community throughout his career. John Dyer, member of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation handed out the medal to Claudio Allocchio during a ceremony on 17 June 2019 at the TNC opening plenary.

The Vietsch Foundation Medal is awarded annually to individuals or teams that have developed new ideas as well as to those who have proved their organisational skills and whose efforts have led to the creation of institutions or services of long-term value.

In accepting the award, Claudio Allocchio said, “this is the most honorable award I could have received for my work, because it is in the name of Karel Vietsch, which I had the privilege to work together for so many years”.

Claudio Allocchio

Claudio Allocchio was born in 1959 in Crema, Italy where he attended high school. He had a clear interest in science, and technology, which in those years led him to coordinate a team of students who successfully built and launched a series of rockets. He then moved to Trieste, where he studied astrophysics and particle physics. In 1984 he won a study grant at CERN to apply astronomy image processing techniques to particle physics detectors track reconstruction, and then was confirmed as research fellow. At that time, he approached computer networking issues, creating the world first multiprotocol mail gateway service for universal messaging: “by pure coincidence” the user interface to access the global service was named GMAIL. He also started there to collaborate in creating network services in the High-Energy Physics community, and setup the first international link between CERN and Italy. In 1988 he moved back to Trieste, as network manager in the newly created Elettra Synchrotron Radiation facility, and joined the Gruppo Armonizzazione per le Reti della Ricerca (GARR) who later became the Italian NREN, and engaged in RARE WG1 mail and messaging, coordinating and later chairing the COSINE S2.2 proposal for a global messaging service. In 1991, Claudio was one of the RARE WG1 members who joined the IETF to standardize mail messaging systems, and since then was involved in the IETF Application Area, writing, editing and revising a significant number of RFCs. He also chaired some working groups, including the ietf-fax one, and took active part in all activities which involved messaging and real time communications. He was later called into the Application Area Directorate, and chaired it before the creation of the joint Applications and Real Time (ART) new area.  Starting in 1993 he was also involved in the creation of the “it” ccTLD domain Registry, and served as President of the Italian Naming Authority from 1995 to 2005 and advisor to Ministry of Communication domain names committee; he is  now a member of the ccTLD Registry Advisory Board. Claudio has worked in various roles in all GÉANT projects (including as Security Coordinator and as member of activities in the areas of multimedia, security, policy); he is currently also one of the main advisors for the EaPConnect project. He also was TERENA vice-president for technical programme from 2001 until 2007 and member of the board. In 2005 he started to work in the collaboration with Conservatorio Tartini in Trieste, where he is currently chief network engineer for LoLa development. Besides his education in Physics, he also has a formal education in music (piano).

New project: Diamond Key Security Microsoft CryptoAPI Integration

8 May 2019, the Vietsch Foundation funds a new project proposal called “DKS Microsoft CryptoAPI Integration Project”.

The project aims to create and develop the software application programming interface (API) and perform the necessary integration and validation steps for the DKS hardware security module, the Diamond-HSM™, to support and function with the Microsoft CryptoAPI (often referred to as “CAPI”). This work will enable the addition of Windows support for the DKS open source Hardware Security Module. Developing this integration to communicate with the Microsoft operating system will dramatically increase the reach of security solutions among non-profit higher education networks driving scientific research and innovation.

With this new grant, the Vietsch Foundation will assist in supporting the research in the development, enhancement, and deployment of transparent, auditable cryptographic technologies—helping to safeguard the internet for educational and research purposes—for all users.

Click here to access the Press Release from Diamond Key Security

New project in the Research and Higher Education Technology Fund

The Vietsch Foundation has decided to fund a new project under the NLnet Research and Higher Education Technology Fund :

TRACKING EXPOSED

Algorithms are the technological solution to the information overload: they are as powerful as necessary to manage the overflow of data that reaches us. Unfortunately, they can also conceal the existence and use of assessments and judgments that impact the dissemination of ideas and culture. No one should be allowed to abuse such power over connected people. At this stage, consent is nor informed nor optional.

The main objective of the project is to put a spotlight on users’ tracking, profiling, on the data market and on the influence of algorithms. As long as these phenomena are shielded from view or understood only by experts, they cannot be tackled with the political determination that problems of such magnitude deserve. That is why we strive to explain the issue, test and promote new solutions, developed to benefit the community.

Project URL https://tracking.exposed/

Medal award 2018

The Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour is awarded annually to individuals or teams that have developed new ideas or demonstrated sustained organisational skills and whose efforts have led to the creation of institutions or services of enduring value.

The Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation take great pleasure in announcing that they have unanimously selected two outstanding individuals whose dedication and contributions to community advancement make them each a worthy recipient of an individual 2018 medal of honour: Licia Florio and Ingrid Melve.

The 2018 Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour was awarded in Trondheim on 11 June, during the TNC18 conference, the largest European research and education networking event, organised by GÉANT.

Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees explains the rationale behind this year’s award. “Licia and Ingrid each have a strong track record of achievements that have brought enduring benefits for the research and education networking community. Since we found both equally deserving, the trustees decided to award two medals to recognize this work,   over many years, that continues to benefit millions in the community every day.”

 

Licia Florio

Licia Florio is Senior Trust and Identity Manager at GÉANT. Licia joined TERENA in 2001. Working in the area of Trust and Identity she has led or guided most of the initiatives that make up the current European and global authentication and authorisation infrastructure for research and education. Having supported the Task Forces that produced the eduroam (federated access to wireless networks) pilot and led to the technical infrastructure for eduGAIN federated authentication system, she initiated the EuroCAMP workshops.

She led the TERENA Certificate Service that has greatly reduced the price of digital certificates for research and education organisations across Europe, and the TACAR project that facilitates trust between certificates issued for research and education purposes across the globe. Such activities require coordination beyond Europe and she has provided continuing leadership throughout the life of the REFEDS activity developing compatible federation policies and practices. Currently she leads the AARC project that continues to help research organisations to deploy federated access.

 

 

Ingrid Melve

Ingrid Melve worked at Uninett until December 31, 2017. Since January 1, 2018, she has been working at Unit – Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research. For more than 20 years, Ingrid has led the introduction of new technologies into research and education, bringing a practical perspective to sometimes arcane technical discussions. After early investigations into how universities could make effective use of web caches, she worked on national and international deployments of federated access management. She then led the first effort by any European research network to help universities and colleges with their internal infrastructure, covering video-conferencing, lecture capture, on-line examinations and much more. Throughout her career, she has been generous in sharing her knowledge with the community, entertaining and informing audiences at many TERENA and GÉANT conferences, as well as contributing greatly to conference organisation.

 

ENDS

 

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks. For details visit: https://www.vietsch-foundation.org

The Referoo project to Improve the Efficiency of Scientific Peer-Reviewing

Funded in 2018

– The Referoo project aims to create a set of tools to address some of the most critical inefficiencies of the traditional peer-reviewing process of scientific publications. In particular, it will build a web portal for managing the refereeing tasks of researchers. The portal will be designed in such a way as to encourage referees to perform their duties conscientiously and efficiently, and provide them with clearer incentives. At the same time, the portal will implement tools to avoid the inefficiencies and the work duplication of the usual refereeing process.

Two new projects in the Research and Higher Education Technology Fund

The Vietsch Foundation made a new contribution to the NLnet Research and Higher Education Technology Fund to support two innovative projects:

  • Explain.directly.  This collaborative project between the Web Information Systems group of TU Delft and FeedbackFruits, aims at piloting new and more effective access paradigms for Online Open Courseware. In most cases, online educational material is intended to be consumed in a traditional course-based manner. The project will work on making access to educational material easier, targeted and direct, re-usable and more tailored to life-long learning scenarios.
  • Democratic Sendcomm. The project aims to build a user-friendly connected telemetry appliance with just enough configuration to teach democratic communication while keeping the learning curve flat. The main deliverable will be a Opensource design of cheap yet high performance LoRa devices in form factors appropriate for one low-power platform (like BBC Micro:bit) and one high-power platform (like Minnowboard Turbot). Work will include a sample production run of 1000 units for one of the form factors and suitable documentation for educational purposes.

Project supported by the Vietsch Foundation wins ISOC Innovation Award

Amsterdam 12 January 2018 – Let’s Connect, a project based on eduVPN, the open source VPN project which was funded by the Vietsch Foundation in 2017, has won the Annual ISOC Innovation Award. The award was handed out to Rogier Spoor (SURFnet) by Melanie Peters, Director of the Rathenau Instituut, during a ceremony held at the Annual ISOC New Year Event held yesterday evening in Amsterdam.

eduVPN was judged an innovative and useful project but also a mature and sustainable one. Surfnet, the Dutch research and education networking organisation offers eduVPN as a service for Dutch higher education and research https://www.eduvpn.nl/.

The Vietsch Foundation welcomes Lígia Ribeiro in its Board of Trustees

Amsterdam 3-January-2018. The Vietsch Foundation is delighted to announce that Lígia Ribeiro has joined its Board of Trustees. “Lígia has an outstanding track record in supporting research and higher education at a very high level both at national and European level. She is a great addition to the Board of Trustees and I’m sure will make us stronger” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of the Vietsch Foundation.

Lígia has been Principal Researcher at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto since 2002. She was Pro-rector for ICT at the University between 2006 and 2014, after being Vice-president of the Institute for Common Resources and Initiatives and director of the Computer Centre of the Faculty of Engineering.

Lígia Ribeiro is member of the Board of Directors of the EUNIS, European University Information Systems Organization, of which she was President between 2004 and 2006, after two years in the position of vice-president. She is also the chair of the European CASRAI Chapter, launched in April 2017. Since 2014 she is a member of the Task Group Best Practice/DRIS of the European Organization for International Research Information (euroCRIS). Between 2008 and 2011 she was member of the Technical Committee of TERENA, the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association.

Lígia Ribeiro received her degree in Applied Mathematics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and holds a PhD in Engineering Science from the University of Minho. Her main research areas of interest are Computer Simulation, High Performance Computing, Information Systems, Electronic Administration and Informal Learning Spaces.

EUNIS signs collaboration agreement with the Vietsch Foundation

The Vietsch Foundation and EUNIS sign Memorandum of Understanding to jointly support advanced technology development for scientific research and higher education

Amsterdam, 8 June 2017: Valentino Cavalli, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation and Ilkka Siissalo, outgoing President of EUNIS, the European University Information Systems, signed a Memorandum of Understanding during the EUNIS 2017 event in Münster. The two organisations see significant potential synergy in their activities, and wish to collaborate on shared goals. EUNIS will support the Vietsch Foundation in the acquisition of projects flowing from its incoming activity stream. Eligible proposals, with demonstrable beneficial impact for scientific research and higher education will be considered by the Vietsch Foundation for funding. “We expect the collaboration with EUNIS to enhance significantly our relationship with the higher education community, particularly by reaching out to universities and campuses in Europe” says Valentino Cavalli, and adds “we believe that such a dynamic community will come up with a lot of innovative ideas for advancing technology to support scientific research and education”. Underlining the unique position of EUNIS as the European platform for exchange of best practice and research in higher education information systems, Ilkka Siissalo states “We are looking forward to foster innovative projects and studies from the wide EUNIS communities by connecting them to the generous support of the Vietsch Foundation. EUNIS is grateful for this opportunity and appreciates the trust of the Vietsch Foundations.”

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks. For details visit: https://www.vietsch-foundation.org

EUNIS, Established in 1993, EUNIS is the Association of Information Technology (IT) Services in European Higher Education and Research (HE & R) institutions. EUNIS aims to encourage cooperation between its members, and also with other organisations and industry suppliers. Regular members of EUNIS are national organisations in 22 European countries as well as single universities. EUNIS has also associate members outside Europe and corporate members representing the industry. For details visit: http://www.eunis.org