The time has come for the SAFIRE Participants Forum to re-elect Member Representatives seats for the Steering Committee 2018/2019. We are planning to hold this election during the SLA Reference Group meeting, to be held at Koponong Hotel on 15 August and all members of the Participants Forum would be welcome to attend the session (scheduled for 13:30). …

The University of Pretoria has signed the Participation Agreement and joined SAFIRE. They are in the process of completing their SAML technical integration, and we hope to welcome them on board as a fully functioning identity provider in the near future.

North West University (NWU) has signed the Participation Agreement and joined SAFIRE as a full participant. NWU completed technical integration some time ago, and so are able to immediately take advantage of the services provided by their federation. Their first login happened within ten minutes of updated metadata being published.

The University of the Witwatersrand has signed the Participation Agreement and joined SAFIRE. They have not yet completed the SAML technical integration, but we hope to welcome them on board as a fully functioning identity provider in the near future.

The African Research Cloud, a joint project of UCT, UWC and NWU, has joined SAFIRE as a service provider.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has signed the Participation Agreement and joined SAFIRE as a full participant. The SANReN Competency Area at the CSIR incubated the SAFIRE project for several years, and we are delighted to formally welcome them into the Federation that they were so integral in establishing.

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the University of Cape Town have both recently signed the Participation Agreement and join SAFIRE as full participants. UCT has further completed technical integration as an identity provider and thus becomes the first South African university to be able to benefit from SAFIRE’s membership of eduGAIN.

SAFIRE has its first few formal signatories to the new Participation Agreement, ushering in the next phase of the South African Identity Federation. Stellenbosch University became the first university (and identity provider) to sign, and the Square Kilometer Array South Africa became the first major South African service provider. In addition, Kivuto Inc became the first non-South African organisation to join as a service provider. We welcome all three to SAFIRE, and the start of what we hope is a long and fruitful relationship. …