By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Senior Correspondent, Lagos

Registrations are being received for the maiden version of the African Network Information Centre(AFRINIC) IPv6 & RPKI e-Deployathon, slated over Zoom from 26 to 28 April, 2022. The e-Deployathon will be conducted in English Language.

Duration is 4 hours each day.

It is open to qualified engineers from any country in Africa. Deadline for application April  18, 2022.

According to the AFRINIC Team: “If you are an engineer who runs a network and believes that you can make one visible concrete step toward IPv6 deployment (or advance your stalled IPv6 deployment), apply for a spot here – https://afrinic.net/edeployathon (Only 35 spots available). “

AFRINIC  is one of the two RIRs with IPv4 addresses in its available pool, 1,585,824 to be specific.

This available pool is grossly inadequate to meet Africa’s current IP address needs and makes IPv6 addresses the only way to sustain the growth of the Internet in Africa.

After almost a decade of training over 6000 engineers from 50 countries on IPv6, AFRINIC came up with an initiative we called a Deployathon back in 2018; a first of its kind.  The main objective behind running a deployathon was to reduce the time between learning about IPv6, and deploying or implementing it on a real network.

In 2020, AFRINIC redesigned the event to allow us to run it entirely online.

Since  firsitst Deployathon, 117 organisations from 29 countries in Africa accomplished 319 deployments KPIs. In 2021, organisations that participated in its online Deployathon were able to accomplish the following together.

27 route6 objects created

25 RPKI ROA objects created

17 IPv6 Prefixes were advertised

13 IPv6 address plans created in IPAMs

Those  selected will get the exact step by step guidance, tools and techniques AFRINIC perfected in 8 (e-)Deployathons and over 100 helpdesk calls towards your IPv6 deployment plans. AFRINIC will help you move one measurable step forward in full accordance with your network change management processes.