Personal Computers may help to solve humanities problems

Millions of personal computers sit idly on desks and in homes worldwide. During this idle time, the mysteries of science and space continue to elude us. What if each of the world's estimated 650 million PCs could be linked to focus on humanity's most pressing issues?

To make this vision a reality, SUNY New Paltz has become a partner of World Community Grid, joining the IBM Corporation and a group of leading foundations, public organizations and academic institutions.

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.

Importantly, World Community Grid is easy and safe to use.

When idle, the 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.

Once the software program has been installed (www.worldcommunitygrid.org) and member registration has been completed, go to the SUNY New Paltz WCG team page (www.newpaltz.edu/wcgteam) to find out how to join the team.

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 such as water.

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, it was completed in less than six months and identified 45 potential smallpox-treatment candidates.

SUNY New Paltz, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Hong Kong and other leaders in the world community are partnering with World Community Grid to help solve problems that are plaguing humanity.

To join, students, faculty, alumni and friends should go to www.worldcommunitygrid.org and simply download and install a free, small software program on their computers.

OCTOBER 24, 2005
Volume 3, Issue 21

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