The Dgroups Executive Committee agreed a contract with WA research to build the next version of Dgroups. The contract was signed last week, Thursday.
WA Research SA has been in operation since January, 2002, with a mission to build and support collaborative solutions for the international development sector. Customers include the World Health
Organisation, the United Nations Staff College, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, MD, and a number of other international and non profit
organizations.
WA have developed a collaboration platform called ECS. It was originally funded by the WHO and Implementing Best Practices (IBP) consortium, which includes more than 20 organisations involved in
reproductive public health (http://www.ibpinitiative.org). ECS is used by more than 25.000 active users and is rapidly growing. WA Research approach is summarised at http://edgeof.net/.
This is a MAJOR milestone for Dgroups – we have been planning this next step for a long time now.
If all goes to plan, we should have the new platform ready by the end of the year, with the migration complete in February.
We recognize that we have much to do in a short time-frame. It will also lead to some changes in the way Dgroups operates. We aim to make the transition as smooth as possible, and we count on your help in this.
To anticipate any problems and to minimize disruption, we are putting together a migration team to oversee – and communicate – the process and all the various steps; I am sure you will here from them very soon with more details, and requests to help beta test the new service.