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August 2008
Last chance to submit for ORION Awards
September 30 is the deadline for submissions for the 2008 ORION Awards. Researchers, scientists and educators are urged to send in their nominations for individuals and projects leveraging advanced networks and collaborative technologies. Nominations can be made under the Discovery, Learning and Leadership categories. Awards will be presented at the Powering Innovation: A National Summit in Toronto on November 3, 2008. For more information and to submit, visit www.orion.on.ca/2008awards.
Exploring new R&E services over ORION
Invited by stakeholders and connected institutions to take the lead in launching new research and education services over the network, ORION is creating working groups to consider deploying IP video conferencing, web-based collaboration tools, and on-line backup data storage, as potential shared applications made centrally available. The aim is to offer ORION institutions and users value-added services that are relevant to their needs. The committees will help determine requirements, assess opportunities and develop go-forward business plans, says ORION's Senior Director of Partnerships and Strategic Alliances, David Koa. ORION would also spearhead funding proposals with the support of involved stakeholders. ORION is inviting CIOs and staff, as well as representatives of the "user" community, including researchers and educators, to serve on the working groups. Individuals interested in learning more are invited to write to info@orion.on.ca.
$9.2M for Ontario early research
Dr. Hagit Shatkay, a Queen's University researcher working on tools to help scientists understand and use the flood of data that has been pouring in since the sequencing of the human genome, is among the several Early Researcher Awards recipients announced recently by the Ministry of Research and Innovation. In total, 66 projects across the province worth $9.24 million will receive funding from the program, created to improve Ontario's ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent from around the world. To date, 26 researchers have received funding for projects worth over $6.1 million at universities throughout Ontario. Learn more about the projects, including profiles of the recipients and their projects, at www.mri.gov.on.ca/english/news.
Registration open for Cybera Summit
Cybera - Alberta's advanced network organization - is hosting its second annual Cyberinfrastructure Summit on September 29 and 30, 2008, at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. The event brings together cyberinfrastructure users, collaborators and innovators to focus on building, strengthening and expanding the cyberinfrastructure foundation in Alberta's private sector and research community. Keynote speakers include Bill Appelbe, CEO, Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing; Paul Strong, Distinguished Research Scientist, eBay; and Nora Young, Producer and Host of CBC Radio's Spark. View the schedule and register at www.cybera.ca/summit.
U of T to host Canada's top supercomputer
The University of Toronto's SciNet Consortium and IBM recently announced an agreement to build Canada's most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputer. The system will process up to 360 trillion calculations per second and be housed in an ultra energy-efficient data centre. As a premier academic research system, the machine is expected to be among the top 20 fastest supercomputers in the world; 30 times faster than the peak performance of Canada's current largest research system. It also represents the second largest system ever built on a university campus, and the largest supercomputer outside the United States. The consortium, which includes the University of Toronto and associated research hospitals, will enhance SciNet's competitive position in globally important research projects. These include ground-breaking research in aerospace, astrophysics, bioinformatics, chemical physics, climate change prediction, medical imaging and the global ATLAS project, which is investigating the forces that govern the universe. "SciNet will have one of the best facilities in the world that will allow Canadian physicists to participate in the adventure of the Large Hadron Collider," said Dr. Pierre Savard, a member of the Canadian group working at CERN, Geneva. Funding has been provided by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation's National Platforms Fund, in partnership with the Province of Ontario and the University of Toronto. Construction of the datacenter will begin immediately and installation of the system will begin in the fall. Both of the main computing systems are expected to be fully operational by summer 2009. Read more at www.reuters.com.
Large Hadron Collider rap
Gearing up to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) being turned up at CERN next month, the U.S. arm of LHC scientists has put together a fun rap video explaining in layman's terms the function and purpose behind this huge, international science experiment. See it at http://uslhc.us/blogs.
U Waterloo breaks ground on quantum-nano centre
The University of Waterloo recently broke ground on a $160-million investment: the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre, which will be home to two forefront areas of science and engineering -- quantum information technology and nanotechnology. The potential synergies produced by nano and quantum researchers working side by side will be unique. No other quantum group in the world has a direct in-house bridge to a major nanotech institute and no nanotech centre has the opportunity to partner in developments at the leading edge of quantum information technologies. The Government of Ontario is providing $50 million; another $22 million is coming from the Lazaridis family. It is scheduled to open late in 2010 or early 2011. Read more at http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.
Ontario invests $25M in northern bio-economy
The provincial government recently announced an investment of $25 million in the new Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE) in Thunder Bay. The centre will attract world-class researchers and industry leaders to develop and commercialize the next generation of renewable forestry bio-products. Forest bio-products contribute an estimated $1 billion to Canada's economy and could one day be as important as the conventional forest economy. Ontario's bio-economy is already taking root with innovative companies producing parts for the auto industry and developing new ways to generate clean energy. Read more at www.mri.gov.on.ca/english/news.
NEPTUNE data to flow soon over CANARIE
CANARIE, through its Infrastructure Extension Program, is providing $2.2 million to support a dedicated connection for the NEPTUNE Canada project for 10 years. The University of Victoria-led project, the world's first regional cabled ocean observatory, will possibly see data begin flowing as early as fall 2008. With CANARIE's connection, data will reach researchers faster and in greater volume. The dedicated line is capable of carrying up to 10 billion bits per second, the equivalent of a simultaneous broadcast of 500 broadcast-quality HDTV channels. Running between the University of Victoria's shore station in Port Alberni and the UVic campus - a distance of 200 kilometres - the line will provide the NEPTUNE Canada network with the required capacity to support the hundreds of instruments and sensors it will install later this year on the seafloor on an 800-km underwater cable loop west of Vancouver Island. The transmitted data will flow out from UVic through existing high bandwidth research network connections to scientists and the public around the world. Learn more at www.neptunecanada.ca.
TVO makes programming available online
TVO is the first Canadian broadcaster to make its programs available through the newly released Adobe Media Player, a customizable, cross-platform media player, helping to expand the reach of TVO's educational programs and web resources to an ever-growing global audience. Full-show editions of The Agenda with Steve Paikin and Allan Gregg in Conversation are currently available directly through Adobe Media Player. In addition, TVO will offer some of its award-winning documentaries free and on-demand to launch a dedicated web-based TV channel on Joost.com. These are the latest developments in TVO's digital strategy to engage a wider audience across multiple platforms. Learn more at www.tvo.org.
U of T Discovery Commons launches MedSchoolTV
The Discovery Commons in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto has launched MedSchoolTV, to facilitate experimentation with video-on-demand content in Health Sciences. The project involves digitizing a large historical collection of films and videos. It will serve as a host for instructors and students who want to experiment with producing their own videos for public broadcast. It will also provide viewers with a master listing of health sciences video-on-demand services. The project will also test and analyze how different kinds of viewers and learners interact with different formats of production. Read more at http://video.med.utoronto.ca/medtv.
People News
ORION welcomes its newest staff member to the team: Tim Kim joins ORION as Business Development Consultant. As part of the Partnerships and Strategic Alliances unit, he will be instrumental in increasing value for institutions connected to the network. A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Tim most recently was at Bell Canada where he was Service Director of the Carrier Services Group. Debbie Barrett retired June 30 from her position as Chief Information Officer at McMaster University. CANARIE welcomes Eric Bernier as its new Chief Technology Officer. John MacDonald is the new Scientific Director for Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario. Gale Moore recently ended her term as Director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the University of Toronto. Seamus Ross, professor of humanities informatics and digital curation at the University of Glasgow, has been appointed the new dean of the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, effective January 1, 2009. He succeeds the current dean, Professor Brian Cantwell Smith. Congratulations to John W. Senders, Professor Emeritus, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, who was recently awarded the first KMDI Pioneer Award for his contribution to the field of electronic publishing.
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