Saturday 15 December marked the first-year anniversary of KAREN.

One year on and KAREN is continuing to break new ground for education, research and innovation in New Zealand.

We have 20 members connecting at over 40 locations; we have allocated $2.7 million of the Capability Build Fund to development projects and travel grants; traffic on KAREN is regularly topping 9 Terabytes a day; and - most importantly - we are starting to see data-centric research and education activity transformed through KAREN.

Our aggregators, service and content partners, and research and education partners are also further broadening the reach and richness of KAREN.

In the education space we are on track to have our first school connected to KAREN before the end of the year. We have also just announced our KAREN experience programme offering free memberships to ITPs and wānanga for 2008 in exchange for trial projects enabled by KAREN. These developments are exciting news for new and current members alike and will enrich the teaching and learning experience for both.

We look forward to working with the expanding community in 2008 to further crystallise KAREN’s place as essential infrastructure for an innovative New Zealand.