May / June 2007


Ontario Summit to showcase exciting innovations in research and education

From 3D Mona Lisa to virtual reality

The 2007 Ontario Research and Education Summit is around the corner and this year's program promises to be the most innovative and varied agenda yet.

There is still time to register online for the conference, which is dedicated to showcasing achievements and capabilities made possible through global advanced networking and new collaborative tools and technologies.

Once again, ORION has teamed up with the MaRS Collaboration Centre to present the Summit, June 4 and 5 at MaRS' state-of-the-art facilities in Toronto.

Keeping with the theme of "The Promise of Technology," the fourth annual conference features a rich program, including live demonstrations of 3D technologies, real-time sessions between researchers and students, and the Canadian team that made world headlines with a stunning breakthrough revealing long-hidden secrets of the Mona Lisa.

With an expanded programme over two full days, the Summit presents nearly 40 world-class keynotes and presenters, with concurrent sessions and demonstrations that showcase the latest in innovation, looking at what is on the horizon for research and education technologies here in Ontario and around the world.

High-powered keynotes:
The conference's opening keynote features Rob Pennington, Deputy Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the U.S., which has contributed significantly to growth of the worldwide cyberinfrastructure for science and engineering.

That sets the stage for a high-powered roundtable on critical infrastructure for research and education in Canada, chaired by Walter Stewart, Senior Advisor, Intelligent Infrastructure - CANARIE.

His panel includes Dr. Paul G. Sorenson of the University of Alberta, co-author of Alberta's new Cyberinfrastructure for Innovation Initiative, and Dr. Hugh Couchman, Scientific Director of the Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET).

CANARIE President and CEO Andrew Bjerring also provides an update on CANARIE, which has been confirmed for renewed funding by the federal government for the next five years. Bjerring will touch on future directions for CANARIE and the national network.

Futurist, trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll offers his insights as to where the high-velocity technology voyage is taking the world, in the context of business, healthcare, society and education.

Renowned education guru Professor Curtis J. Bonk from Indiana University will present 10 technology trends that have flattened the world of learning and made it accessible to increasing numbers of learners.

The Summit's closing keynote is Dr. Alejandro Jadad of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, on the topic, "Humanodes in the Global Superorganism: How technology can help us reach optimum health and well-being in the 21st century."

Concurrent sessions:
One of the breakout sessions will discuss the topic of Youth and Science - Making the Connection, chaired by TVOntario CEO Lisa de Wilde. The winner of the Extreme VR Science Fair, to be announced later this month, has been invited by Summit organizers to present his or her project to the conference, featuring the use of state-of-the-art virtual reality, 3D technology, provided by Sudbury's Mining, Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corp. (MIRARCO). Attendees will also be able to tune into a live VROC (Virtual Researchers on Call) session between Dr. James Koropatnick of the London Health Sciences Centre and a high school science class in Peterborough.

The University of Toronto's Prof. Alberto Leon-Garcia pulls together a panel of public and private sector experts to give an overview of what's on the horizon for next-generation collaboration technologies, while the University of Ottawa's Dr. Khaled El Emam chairs a session on new technologies driving collaboration and innovation in the medical field.

Greg Weiler of Fanshawe College and Marti Jurmain of Niagara College team up to facilitate a discussion on the opportunities and barriers facing Ontario colleges in expanding their roles in applied research.

Finally, CIOs and researchers from throughout Ontario have been invited to the Summit to participate in a broad discussion, chaired by York University CIO Bob Gagne, on what is needed to close the gap between CIOs and institutional information technology, and the researchers, looking at how best to give researchers the tools they need to do their jobs.

Other highlights:
Among the highlights of the Summit will be NRC-IIT Director General, Christian Couturier, who will speak and demonstrate his team's recent collaboration with the Louvre, which made world headlines, on the NRC's advanced technologies and expertise to reveal new information about the most famous painting in the world. An NRC research team was instrumental in providing the imaging technology to document the 500-hundred-year-old painting's state of preservation, creating a high-resolution archival quality 3D digital model of the masterpiece.

No less impressive is Dr. David Topps', Director of eLearning at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), presentation on the school's new iAnatomy collaboration with California's Stanford University School of Medicine making use of Stanford's collection of stereoscopic images of human anatomy to allow faculty and students to view and manipulate high-definition, three-dimensional anatomical representations.

Also making headlines, in the information technology and business sector, is Barry Fogarty, President of Octopz, who will speak about the new commercial venture operating out of MaRS, which has developed a new online, on-demand Web 2.0 collaboration technology that blends digital media, web conferencing, VoIP and content management technologies and other tools and resources in a seamless collaborative work environment.

There is still time to register online. Students also receive a discount.

For more details about the Summit, visit the website at www.orion.on.ca/2007orionsummit.

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