During the opening Ceremony of the e-AGE 2012, HE Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stated in his keynote speech: "I want to capture this historic moment of meeting here in UAE and under the patronage of my great friend His Highness Sheikh Nahyan Mabarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and much more, to announce that I will be asking ASREN Management jointly with ANKABUT Management in collaboration with DANTE which is responsible for the pan-European GEANT Network and the US Internet 2 to work together towards the development of an action plan whereby UAE with its developed e-Infrastructure environment can host the hub of knowledge and connectivity for the Arab region with its international partners worldwide. If we succeed with this ambition, one day we will be proud all of us that we have enabled our educational institutions, researchers, and knowledge workers in the Arab world to become part of the world Research and Education globally."
"We look forward to having all NRENs of Arab countries to become part of ASREN as owners and shareholders to help support and sustain the development of the Pan-Arab research and e-infrastructure. ASREN will continue to serve the Arab region in developing best practice NREN model and provide pan-Arab e-Infrastructure connectivity at the regional level," he said.
"We hope to see high speed networks with Gigabits bandwidth connecting neighboring countries in the Arab region, and to the world regional networks for research and education as this will help to introduce tools for developing collaboration and cooperation between scientists, researchers and students and to enhance the quality of education and research. We are happy to announce that ASREN is investing in its first STM1 cable connection between ASREN and the European research and education Network “GEANT,” he added.
