Maeen Network Program
King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) has established the Saudi Research & Innovation Network (Maeen Network) with national expertise in collaboration with national research & education institutes in line with Saudi Vision 2030.
KACST-ISU was responsible for managing Maeen Network. Maeen Network is responsible, on a national basis, for the provision of data communications networks and services to the research and education community of Saudi. KACST-ISU primary mission was to plan, build and manage Maeen Network. It performs a coordinating and managerial role, in the form of a secretariat. Maeen Network aims is to build communication networks and services for academic and research community using the most advanced technology and operating at the highest connectivity speeds.
Research networking activity is seen as having an important contribution to make towards maintaining Saudi competitiveness and supporting economic development. Research networking helps provide the ability for all researchers, wherever they work, to participate in collaborative research projects and contribute to the best of their abilities. Through the vital support, it provides to research and education in Saudi, enabling researchers and academics to work at the forefront of their fields, research networking helps Saudi’s economy to remain a globally competitive.
The involvement of organizations from many international countries in a research networking is a very good example of the sort of Maeen Network cooperation with other NRENs that is fundamental to the objectives of the Maeen Network itself.
Maeen Network Goals
The project aims at conducting a refreshment on previous efforts that lead to a complete strategy for a national research and innovation network. The previous efforts focused on certain services that were hot topic at the time. However, as NRENs develop across the globe, new NREN unique services start to emerge, which call to updating the strategy with services that should be available only through Maeen Network to enhance the knowledge sharing and education development within the Kingdom.
Maeen Network can be seen as an enabler for various goals relevant to Education and Research domains, as depicted in the figure below:
We target to address the needs for national research and education networks for their ability to achieve the requirements of speed and efficiency of data transfer between subscribers in the scientific research community. Maeen Network will provide unique services, which might create a favorable environment for academics to conduct research and test innovative technologies. It connects academic entities within the countries and connects to peer networks around the globe, which allows providing unique global services
We are looking to be the main facilitator to provide unique services for Saudi academic and research networks.