World Community Grid establishes a permanent, flexible infrastructure that
provides researchers with a readily available pool of computational power
that can be used to solve problems plaguing humanity. Importantly, World
Community Grid is easy and safe to use.
To join, members should go to www.worldcommunitygrid.org and
simply download and install a free, small software program on their computers.
When idle, your computers request data from World Community Grid’s
server. Computers then perform computations using this data, send the results
back to the server and prompt it for a new piece of work.
“World Community Grid provides an efficient and effective way to
make a difference on problems that plague humanity,” said Cari Parsons. “We
are encouraging our members to join World Community Grid as part of our
overall efforts to enrich the lives of our member communities.”
World Community Grid will address global humanitarian issues, such as:
• New and existing infectious disease research: Researching
cures for HIV and AIDS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), malaria
and others.
• Genomic and disease research: The Human Proteome
Folding project—World Community Grid’s first project—seeks
to help identify the functions of the proteins that are coded by human genes.
• Natural disasters and hunger: World Community Grid
applications can help researchers and scientists with earthquake predictions,
improving crop yields and evaluating the supply of critical natural resources
like water.
What is grid technology?
Grid technology joins together many individual computers, creating a large
system with massive computational power that exceeds the power of a few
supercomputers. This capability can be applied, on a global scale, to very
large and complex problems for the benefit of humanity.
The benefits are proven. In 2003, the IBM Corporation was one of the sponsors
of a smallpox study that took advantage of grid computing. This study, using
today’s largest available super computers, would have taken years
to complete. With grid computing, this study was completed in less than
six months and identified 45 potential smallpox-treatment candidates.
IBM’s world class and open eServer and Storage products, built with
IBM’s innovative and open Middleware products like WebSphere, DB2
and managed by Tivoli, serves as the technology behind grid computing. United
Devices, the market leader in highly secure grid solutions for businesses
of all sizes, developed the special software application that enables World
Community Grid to operate. American Express and other leaders in the corporate
community are partnering with World Community Grid and encouraging their
employees to participate.
Join World Community Grid as part of the CECP team today! Visit www.worldcommunitygrid.org.
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