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Africa@home: Volunteer Computing for Africa

Annual Call for Projects 2006

Summary

In this project supported by the Geneva International Academic Network (GIAN) the research team proposes to adapt several epidemiological simulation programs modelling important humanitarian challenges facing Africa, so that they can be run in a distributed fashion using "volunteer computing" technology. This technology, made famous by projects such as Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI@home), can routinely harness the power of tens of thousands of personal computers for important scientific causes. Members of the public who "volunteer" their computer in this way simply download free, open-source software that runs the scientific project of their choice whenever their PC is idle.

This action-oriented, interdisciplinary project will involve teams of students with backgrounds in computer science and epidemiology from African and European institutions working together to set up and test the volunteer computing applications. Thus, a secondary aspect of this project is to favour intercultural relations and dialogue between North and South, involving students, scientists and institutions. The focus will be on the practical application of knowledge from the disciplines of computer science and epidemiology.

This approach was pioneered in a successful pilot project for malaria epidemiology called Africa@home, funded by a GIAN "Small Grant" in 2005. The objective of this project goes well beyond that of the pilot project: the ultimate goal is for African academic institutions to establish the know-how necessary to run volunteer computing projects themselves. Also, the scope of the volunteer computing applications developed within this project will be broadened considerably to include epidemiological studies of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as malaria. Such diseases are a major obstacle to social equity, sustainable development and global competitiveness in trade and commerce for most of Africa. To achieve these wider goals, this endeavour involves a range of new stakeholders - compared to the pilot project – both in African academic institutions and in leading epidemiology research groups. In particular, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has agreed to participate in the project.

The research team has identified epidemiological simulations as an innovative research area for applying volunteer computing. The much larger resources offered by volunteer computing – tens of thousands of computers compared to normal institutional computing clusters with tens or hundreds of machines – allow far more complex and realistic models to be run, and a far greater range of parameter space to be explored. In particular, a largely unexplored opportunity exists to combine such large-scale compute-intensive simulations with real data from the field, in order to improve the underlying models. In this way, it may become possible to reach a stage where the models are accurate enough to provide researchers with reliable predictive tools for assessing the impact of changes, such as the introduction of new vaccines.

The project involves a novel partnership between the academic world and international organisations in Geneva: the Computer Science Department of the University of Geneva; two international organisations – the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and WHO; and two NGOs – Software without Borders (ISF) and International Conference Volunteers (ICV). In addition, a range of academic partners in Africa and Europe will be actively involved in the project. This wider network will create new synergies among institutions around the globe, and bring expertise in key epidemiological models to the project, as well as providing long-term hosting of the volunteer computing projects in Africa, once they are operational.

The project is structured in three parts:

  1. Choosing, adapting and running two new epidemiological models on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). WHO provides guidance and liaison to relevant research groups; CERN hosts student teams to do the BOINC adaptation; the University of Geneva provides students, server capacity and support for projects; ICV and ISF coordinate African student and training participation.
  2. Dissemination of BOINC server technology in African centres, including training courses for local IT support staff in the installation and maintenance of BOINC servers and projects. ICV and ISF select and support the IT expert to go to Africa; ICV and WHO liaise with key regional institutes; CERN and the University of Geneva provide initial BOINC server training to IT experts.
  3. Training of African researchers in adapting scientific computing models to the BOINC platform, so that African scientists can independently create and maintain BOINC projects. WHO provides liaison to African institutions to host training sessions and identify relevant projects; ICV and ISF select and support the trainer; CERN and the University of Geneva provide scientific and IT expertise.

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 194,000

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Project Team

Prof. Christian Pellegrini , Coordinator, Computer Sciences Department , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Prof. Bastien Chopard , Principal Member, Computer Sciences Department , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Mr Silvano de Gennaro , Principal Member, Software Without Borders (SWB) .

Mr Manjit Dosanjh , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr François Grey , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Ms Viola Krebs , Principal Member, Intenational Conference Volunteers (ICV) .

Mr Ben Segal , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr Brian Williams , Principal Member, World Health Organization (WHO) .

Related Links

> Afica@home , Click here.

> AIMS Workshop on Volunteer Computing

> ICVolunteers

> 3rd Pan-Galactic BOINC Workshop

Related News

Related Conferences

WHO Lunch Time Seminar on Health Grids: The Africa@home Project – 17 November 2006
The large computing power made available through volunteer computing can be harnessed for health projects. Africa@home...
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Volunteer Computing for Africa: Workshop in South Africa, 16 - 22 July 2007
An intensive one-week workshop will be offered to qualified African students interested in the new technology of...
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Volunteer Computing for Africa: Third Pan-Galactic BOINC Workshop – Château de Penthes, Geneva - 5-6 September 2007
This workshop on BOINC, linked to the GIAN-supported project “Volunteer Computing for Africa” which will take place in...
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