| Description: | On Wednesday November 15th, 2023, we held a borrel for John McKean to wish him well in the new adventure that he'll be taking up in South Africa. John will be at ASTRON less in the coming years, but he'll still visit regularly and will continue his strong scientific collaborations with ASTRON and JIVE. He'll also continue his position at the Kapteyn Institute in Groningen. In this picture, Betsey Adams is seen presenting John with some gifts from A&O and ASTRON.
John is taking up a well-supported 5-year South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) in Very Long Baseline Interferometry (extendable to 15 years), which is hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and co-hosted by the University of Pretoria. The goal of the project is to support the Southern African VLBI community through the SARAO Africa Programme, which will involve schools and workshops within South Africa and the African VLBI Partner countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia). This is important for building the research capacity and expertise in VLBI techniques so that these countries can participate in the African VLBI Network (AVN) and SKA projects in the near future. In addition, the project will involve developing the technologies to realise the AVN, from receiver design to new data correlation and processing techniques. Overall, the goal is to build a centre of excellence in VLBI research and operations within Africa, which can become an important node for global VLBI operations in the longer term.
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