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2nd Quarter 2008


ICT-KM supports events and conferences

Enterprise Security in the Americas IT workshop: Providing Training for increased security
March 31-April 11, Peru

Advancing Agriculture in Developing Countries through Knowledge and Innovation
April 7-9, Ethiopia

International Farmers Conference on Participatory Plant Breeding
May 4-8, Syria

Data Management in the CGIAR
June 9-11, Italy

Annual Knowledge Management for Development Meeting
June 18-21, Portugal

Knowledge Sharing launch at IFAD
June 18, Italy

Snippets

Joint ICT supports ILRI – WorldAgroforestry (ICRAF)
A project for sharing ICT capacities between two centers has moved to a new level in Nairobi, which hosts the Headquarters for both ILRI and WorldAgroforestry (ICRAF). The project began in 2001 with the establishment of a joint ICT team and appointment of one IT manager for the two Centers and evolved through development of a common ICT strategy that advocated increased communication and collaboration and sharing of common needs such as Internet and email applications.

In 2007, the project activities expanded by establishing function-based rather than site-based teams. These teams now deal with customer service, infrastructure and applications for both Centers.

The next steps will be consolidating use of equipment and software applications, data storage and telephone equipment between the two Centers. This will require the upgrading of capacity, inter-campus connections and internet connectivity. Continued efforts to learn lessons from this inter-center collaboration will be shared with the IT managers and CGIAR Centers.

Email, virus, and spam volume on the increase
As all of us are well aware, the volume of emails received each day has risen astronomically in recent months. In the month of July 2007, the 8000 staff members of the CGIAR received a total of 5 million messages. Just nine months later, in March 2008, it had risen to 24 million messages. Breaking it down further, this amounts to 32,000 messages per hour or a 500% increase in nine months. And one last tidbit on this issue – more than 80% of this is spam.

However, thanks to a partnership between CGNET and Symantec that filters incoming mail, most of these spam messages do not reach our networks. This level of protection makes sure our valuable bandwidth, particularly in the CGIAR's remote locations, remains free and CGIAR scientists do not lose time dealing with troubling spam or viruses.
Click here for more information.

Bragging about our blog(s)
ICT-KM is using blogs as one of our tools for sharing knowledge updates, news, thoughts and ideas directly from the programs, activities and projects. All are welcome to participate in the blog communication, which can be accessed through http://ictkm.cgiar.org/.
The Knowledge Sharing Project's blog, one of the most active within ICT-KM, can be accessed from the KS Web site: www.ks-cgiar.org or directly at http://ictkm.wordpress.
com/category/knowledge-sharing.
The CGXchange blog offers insight into its operations, thoughts and ideas at http://ictkm.wordpress.com/
category/cgxchange. The information is there to be shared, discussed and added to – from learning more about "pics and maps" (photos in Google maps) to discussing what's up with social technology adoption, to informing about ICT-KM staffer Antonella Pastore's participation in the Italian Information Architect's Summit.



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Enterprise Security in the Americas IT workshop: Providing Training for increased security
March 31-April 11, Peru

As part of the continued efforts to increase and support Enterprise Security practices across the CGIAR, two trainings targeted at CGIAR IT professionals were presented at the Enterprise Security in the Americas (ESA) Workshop held in Lima in April.

The Certified Information Security Systems Professional (CISSP) and Certified Ethical Hacking (CEH) tutorials consisted of a series of self test questions and lectures that covered the CG operating environment and provided both theory and practical demonstration of the tools.

IT staff from CIP, ICRAF, IFPRI, CIAT, CIMMYT and Bioversity International attended and discussed issues ranging from head office-outpost liaison to connectivity, software licenses and inter-center collaboration.
They also discussed the need to draft minimum-level IT standard specifications for the regional and small offices that can bridge the expectations between the regions or outposts and their head offices.



These efforts and discussions will continue through the annual IT Managers meeting to be held in Hyderabad later this year.

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We welcome feedback on the ICT-KM News, so please feel free to contact us at ictkm@cgiar.org