ORION Newsletter

November 2007

OCAD and TELUS partner to offer industrial design course for wireless
Third-year students taking Industrial Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) will start shaping Canada's booming wireless industry with an innovative new design course. The OCAD/TELUS Handset Project, part of the curriculum of OCAD's Industrial Design program course, Emerging Technologies, will teach students how to design handsets for wireless phones that will meet the future needs of Canadian mobile users. A first for both OCAD and TELUS, this collaboration will draw upon the students' and the university's vast design experience, while educating about the intricacies of wireless device design. The most innovative and functional design will be considered by TELUS for further development and possible commercialization in the mass market. Third-year students in Industrial Design will work together in small teams with frequent mentorship from TELUS team members. The student demonstrating the strongest abilities will be offered a four-month summer internship with TELUS. Through the co-op term, the student will gain hands-on experience, working side-by-side with the product development team. To learn more, visit www.ocad.ca.

Ryerson site helps kick off International Polar Year series
Ryerson University was among the several global sites kicking off a series of International Polar Year videoconference events, designed to raise awareness of the impact of climate change. The Oct. 19 event took participants in a live interactive videoconference and guided virtual tour of Earth's polar regions. Walter Staveloz, Director of International Relations for the Association of Science-Technology Centres (ASTC), presented live from Ryerson over the ORION network, linking students and scientists in the U.S. and Western Europe with polar researchers, including scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre. The event was part of the International Action on Global Warming (IGLO) project, an international organization of science centres and museums dedicated to furthering public understanding of climate science. The conference kicked off a series of live videoconference events over Internet2 and research and education networks over the next three years. The impact of climate change is among the themes to be explored at the ASTC's Fifth Science Centre World Congress, hosted by the Ontario Science Centre, in Toronto June 15-20, 2008. Learn more at www.astc.org.

New supercomputer at TRIUMF aids researchers
A new Canadian-built supercomputer will aid researchers from a consortium of Canadian universities in their search for an elusive subatomic particle, which could radically alter our understanding of physics. The new IBM System Cluster 1350 supercomputer, launched recently at TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for subatomic physics, is the latest addition to the project's international grid of high-performance computing centres. It will help researchers analyze reams of data generated by the world's largest nuclear collider, located at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. A team of 70 Canadian researchers are working on an experiment dubbed ATLAS, which aims to uncover the mysteries of the Higgs particle. Involving nearly 2,000 researchers worldwide, they believe the Higgs boson particle is the last missing piece in the standard model of particle physics and could explain the origin of mass. For more information, visit www.atlas-canada.ca.

Laurentian's library offers electronic delivery service
Laurentian University's J.N. Desmarais Library becomes the first library in Ontario to offer users a paperless delivery service for single copies of articles and book chapters. The free electronic document delivery means that articles can be emailed to the address associated with their interlibrary loan (ILL) account. Ashley Thomson, coordinator of the ILL service at Laurentian University, said that the library has introduced the program to expedite delivery of eligible ILL documents. "Laurentian has a prominent distance education program," he said. "This initiative will be particularly appreciated by Laurentian students who do not have [physical] access to the library." Furthermore, the program will reduce the impact on the environment associated with printing thousands of pages per month.

Ontario cancer researchers link to World Community Grid
An Ontario research team led by Dr. Igor Jurisica at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) and scientists at Princess Margaret Hospital and the University Health Network are the first from Canada to use the World Community Grid, a network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globe's top five fastest supercomputers. The team will use World Community Grid to analyze the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. This analysis would take conventional computer systems 162 years to complete. However, using World Community Grid, Dr. Jurisica anticipates the analysis could be finished in one to two years. It will provide researchers with a better way to study how proteins function, insight that could lead to the development of more effective cancer-fighting drugs. To learn more, visit www.gridtoday.com.

New global K20 social networking site
Muse is a new social networking tool that makes it easier for the variety of K20 community groups around the world to discover and connect with each other surrounding the use of advanced network-enabled teaching and learning resources and applications. Launched jointly by the Internet2 K20 Initiative and MAGPI, the goal of Muse is to allow users to quickly discover collaborators and projects, easily communicate with other community members, and to find inspiration to develop new and exciting projects using advanced R&E networks. Once an account is set up, users can search for people, projects and organizations as well as post new projects, opportunities, news and resources. Go to http://k20.internet2.edu to create your account.

Megaconference IX archives sessions; Megaconference Jr. 2008
Several Ontario institutions took part in joining participants from around the world for another successful Megaconference on November 8. Archived sessions of this global videoconferencing event can be viewed at http://commonsvcg.oar.net/megaconference. Don't miss Megaconference Jr. 2008, a videoconferencing event for elementary and secondary schools around the world, which is scheduled for February 21, 2008. Proposals are currently being accepted. For more information, visit www.megaconferencejr.org.

FutureFlick Contest offers $5K in prizes
A reminder to all students in Ontario K-12 schools, colleges and universities to submit their digital short films for the ORION FutureFlick Contest. Students are asked to tell us their vision of student life in the year 2020 through the medium of digital film. Teachers and faculty: spread the word and get your students involved! Submissions will be received up until January 31, 2008 at midnight. Learn more at www.orion.on.ca/futureflick.

MaRS Landing launches online directory
MaRS Landing launches an online, Ontario-based Functional Food & Natural Health Product (FFNHP) Sector Directory. This searchable FFNHP Directory will facilitate communication among FFNHP sector members and stakeholders as well as showcase and increase awareness of this emerging sector's capacity. The FFNHP Directory connects agriculture, food and human health organizations, an essential step in facilitating the commercialization of innovation in agriculture and food sectors in Ontario. For more information, visit www.marslanding.ca.

People News
After 12 1/2 years, Chief Technology Officer Rene Hatem leaves CANARIE to establish an Ottawa-based company offering dark fibre to organizations and to help create a thriving environment for the delivery of services over existing and emerging new business models. In Rene's words, he is excited by "the prospect of creating and pursuing business opportunities consistent with the CANARIE ideals and vision of the future that has inspired me so much in the past." The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has named Dr. Pierre Chartrand as Acting President, effective this month. Currently the Vice President of Research at CIHR, Dr. Chartrand succeeds Dr. Alan Bernstein, who left the CIHR at the end of October. The Board of Directors of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) recently announced the appointment of Dr. Robert Myers to the position of Interim Scientific Director, effective immediately. With Janice Hayes' departure as Executive Director, Andre Paradis has been named Director of Operations at the Ontario Bibliocentre. Jim Slotta, associate professor and Canada Research Chair at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), is the new director of KMDI's Collaborative Program and the Deputy Director of the Institute. He will be working with Gale Moore, who is completing her last year as KMDI Director. This month, Lynn Sutherland joins Cybera Inc. (formerly Netera Alliance, Alberta's R&E network) as President and CEO.

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