BCNETwork News

March 2006

Come to Western Canada’s Premier Technology Event for Research & Education – Converging Minds: Tools for Innovative Solutions.

To register, click here

Every year, BCNET hosts an outreach event to bring together our university and institute member community to share and exchange information about new and innovative technologies for the research and higher education community. This year, marks the 6th year and the event is bigger and better than ever. Partnering with Alberta’s Optical Regional Advanced Network provider, Netera Alliance, the conference will be attracting researchers, educators, IT, faculty and students from across Western Canada

Is this an event for techies only?
The conference tracks are designed to provide something for everyone-- from the technologically savy to the average non techie layman. As an example, we have tracks on topics such as teaching and learning technologies that will appeal to an audience of educators at any level. As well, for those high-tech physicists out there, we have a rich selection of tracks on high-performance computing. CANARIE, the Canadian national advanced research network backbone, is participating in a big way and will be flying in speakers that will highlight nine national collaborative research projects in advanced applications. With over 80 guest speakers, 3 keynote addresses, and 11 tracks there is definitely something for everyone. For a closer look, preview the agenda.

Special Guest Speaker
This year’s featured keynote speaker is Tony Hey, Vice President of Technical Computing, Microsoft. Dr. Hey is a top researcher in the field of parallel computing, and his experience in applying computing technologies to scientific research helps Microsoft work with researchers worldwide in various fields of science and engineering. Dr. Hey’s presentation topic is “eScience and Cyberinfrastructure” where he will be discussing the evolution of the Internet into a new infrastructure and collaborative environment for many types of applications in both academia and industry. The result? This new Cyberinfrastructure will clearly be of relevance to more than just the research community and will support both the e-learning and digital library communities as well as many business applications.

New Technology Showcase
As a special feature this year, Netera and BCNET are opening up a two hour time slot to the high-tech community to showcase new technologies. Kicking off this track, is renowned guest speaker, Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxip Identity. Dick has a very interesting and light hearted look at some of today’s issues around identity. Following Dick Hard’s talk, see the winners of BCNET’s Coolest Applications Contest present their innovative applications. The contestants are graduate and undergraduate students from BC’s universities and institutes.

And Lots of Opportunities to Network…
Rub shoulders with CIO’s, CEO’s, researchers, government, academics and members of the private high tech community. SUN Microsystems, BCNET’s Platinum Corporate Partner is sponsoring an evening reception with music, refreshments and plenty of great food. The Honourable Murray Coell, the Minister of Advanced Education will be speaking at the evening reception.

For more information about the conference, click here.