Fostering Creative and Innovative Research and Education Communities was the focus of the just concluded UbuntuNet Connect 2023 Conference, which took place in Kampala, Uganda, on October 26–27, 2023.

The conference was attended by delegates from  different African countries and over seas. 
Zambia was represented by a 13 delegate team of which Four (4) were librarians. 

Among the Zambian Librarian delegates were Mr. Chewe from the University of Zambia (UNZA), Mr. Moonga from the Kitwe School of Nursing, Mr. Chilonga from Kwame Nkrumah University, and Ms. Pauline Nchemba, a librarian from Levy Mwanawasa Medical University and the vice president of the Library and Information Association of Zambia (LIAZ).

UbuntuNet Alliance, the East and Southern African region’s research and education network, is uniquely positioned to encourage digital and data innovations that can accelerate the impact of scholarly research. This year’s major focus was on how to identify challenges and opportunities in the community and turn them into academic research, techniques, and methods that result in innovative and creative solutions.

The  four Zambian librarians were part of the 20  South and East African region librarians that attended and were awarded certificates at a closed up Pre-conference Librarians Training  on Open Science that was held on  October 25, 2023. 

In addition to covering pertinent topics related to open access and open data, the programme included a practical exercise on creating institutional repositories.