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the World . . . with Your Computer – HKU Joins World Community Grid
What is World Community Grid?
The World Community Grid
is a project launched by IBM in 2004 with a mission to create the largest public
computing grid benefiting humanity. The work is built on the belief that technological
innovation combined with visionary scientific research and large-scale volunteerism
can change the world for better.
What
are the Benefits?
The World Community Grid is a global humanitarian effort that brings together the collective power of millions of PCs so that their idle computer time can be deployed via the grid to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity. Each computation that a computer performs provides scientists with critical information that accelerates the pace of research. By donating your unused computer time, you can begin to change the world for the better.
Currently the World Community
Grid is focusing on a project for advancing our knowledge of human disease.
By identifying the proteins that make up the Human Proteome, scientists can
build the understanding needed for novel and effective treatments for diseases
like cancer, HIV/AIDS, SARS, and malaria.
How
World Community Grid Works?
Volunteers from around the world can download and install a free and small program or “agent” onto their computers. When idle, the computers will request data on a specific project from World Community Grid’s server. They will then perform computations on this data, send the results back to the server, and ask the server for a new piece of work.
The software agent only runs
when your computer is on and it will get tasks from the World Community Grid
via the Internet when your computer is idle. The software does not need to be
connected to the Internet for carrying out the task, but once finished, it needs
to return data via the Internet and get a new task.
Launch
Ceremony of “World Community Grid” at HKU
A launch ceremony of “World
Community Grid” at HKU, jointly organized by the University and IBM China/Hong
Kong Limited will be held on September 20, 2005 to officially mark the University’s
collaboration with IBM to be its partner of World Community Grid.
Call
for Participation
We now call for participation from all University members by donating their idle computer time to contribute in this global humanitarian effort. Please join the “HKU Team” of the World Community Grid by installing the software agent on any Windows-based PC through the following simple steps:
(1) First download the software agent from http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/downloads.jsp and register with your chosen username at the World Community Grid.
(2) Once you have completed the registration process, go to web site http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=1CHR5N8XN1 and click the button "join this team".
(3) After installation, you
will see the icon
on the right
of the Windows task bar. Double click the icon to display the information of
your software agent as follow:
The success of the project will depend on the collective effort of individuals contributing their PCs' unused CPU time to this not-for-profit endeavor altogether. Act NOW to change the world for better!
For additional information
or questions on the World Community Grid Project, please visit http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
or contact our Dr M C Pong (email: pmc@cc.hku.hk).
Computer Centre
September 14, 2005