Meeting on CERN Data-Grid and its Application: An Opportunity of Learning for Scientists of Developing Countries, 4 November 2002, Islamabad

The Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), in its efforts to play its due role in the socio-economic betterment of developing countries using the maximum potential of Science and Technology for sustainable development, organized a meeting concerning the CERN-COMSATS-NCP project regarding Data-Grid Application and Physics-Data Analysis. The meeting was held at the premises of the COMSATS Secretariat.

This meeting is the first step towards COMSATS endeavour to organize regular lectures via video-conferencing at the COMSATS Headquarters in Islamabad, for the benefit of the scientific community in Pakistan.

The highly respected Engr. Parvez Butt H.I, S.I., Chairman Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and a Governor of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) was the Chief Guest. Director General, CERN also addressed the auspicious gathering through video-conference. Other speakers included Dr. John Ellis and Dr. Diether Blechschmidt from CERN and Dr. Hafeez Hoorani from NCP Quaid-e-Azam University.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research is a Geneva based scientific laboratory which is one of the largest in the world. The Laboratory is financed by 20 European countries and is home to more than 7,000 scientists, from various laboratories and universities all over the globe.

The COMSATS-CERN-NCP project is based on the concept of sharing intellectual and computational resources worldwide. This meeting had been arranged to introduce COMSATS member countries, eminent Pakistani scientists and the diplomatic community to the opportunities and future potential collaboration among scientists from the North and the South. The meeting was unique in a way that it used the video- conferencing technology, shared under the project, to allow members of CERN to participate in the meeting from Geneva. In fact, capacity for computational sharing and video-conferencing are some of the greatest benefits gained under this collaboration.