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Bryant joins World Community Grid
The new partnership allows Bryant to donate idle computer time for humanitarian research projects. Bryant has partnered with World Community Grid™ whose mission is to create the world's largest public computing grid to address humanitarian projects. The university joins the IBM Corporation and a group of more than 200 leading companies, associations, and academic institutions who donate their idle computing capacity - an essential tool for timely and cost-effective research. According to World Community Grid, millions of personal computers sit idly in offices and homes each day. Even when a computer is being used, it is very rarely utilizing all of its available power. World Community Grid uses grid technology to save this computer time to provide researchers with a readily available pool of computational power. If harnessed, this computing capacity can have a far-reaching impact on important research projects. "The entire Bryant community is encouraged to join World Community Grid as part of the university's overall efforts to enrich lives in our communities," said Art Gloster, vice president for information services. "World Community Grid provides our faculty, students, and staff with an efficient and effective way to make a difference in solving worldwide problems." To contribute unused computer power, participants download free software from www.worldcommunitygrid.org. The program is available for computers running Windows, Linux, or Mac operating systems, and is completely secure, according to World Community Grid. Since the organization was founded in November 2004, more than 197,000 members have donated the equivalent of more than 47,000 years of unused computing time. During the first year, researchers used the extra computer capacity to study how proteins could be used to help develop cures for Lyme disease, malaria, or tuberculosis. Without the grid technology, the first stage of this project would have taken five years. Future research could focus on infectious diseases, hunger, and natural disasters. The program, like a screensaver, runs when the computer is idle. When activated, the software requests data from World Community Grid and performs the appropriate computations. Once completed, the software sends the results back to the main server and requests another assignment. Ranked as the lowest priority on the computer, the software will not interfere with the work of the user. The software will shut itself off when the computer is in use, or users can adjust the setting so that the program only runs when the screen saver is on. The computer does not have to be connected to the Internet to perform the task, but once it is finished, a connection must be established to transmit the data. Ultimately, the longer the computer is on, the more processing that can take place. For more information, visit www.worldcommunitygrid.org. All technical or user support inquiries should be directed to World Community Grid Online Help at www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewHelp.do
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