Press Release Source: Marist College

World Community Grid Powered By 100,000 Devices
Thursday April 28, 12:00 pm ET
- Marist College is first university to join this humanitarian effort -

ARMONK, N.Y., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, World Community Grid enlisted its 100,000th computer and its first university partner, Marist College, in the humanitarian effort to find answers to the world's most daunting scientific problems through unparalleled computational research provided by IBM.

World Community Grid (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org) is harnessing the unused computer power of the world's computers and directing it to humanitarian efforts. In less than five months, more than 64,000 individuals have signed up their personal and business computers and have donated more than 8,250 years of run time.

The Human Proteome Folding Project, World Community Grid's first project, is identifying the proteins that make up the Human Proteome so that scientists can better identify causes and potential cures for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. In this project, World Community Grid has completed more than 6 million work units in five months, which might have taken a large supercomputer five years to accomplish.

"World Community Grid has tremendous appeal and in a few months already has enabled individuals concerned about important causes like fighting cancer to get involved in the solution," said Stanley Litow, vice president, IBM Corporate Community Relations, and president, IBM International Foundation. "We are very excited to welcome Marist College as World Community Grid's first university partner. We applaud Marist's leadership as the first of many universities we expect to join this effort."

Marist College, a leading liberal arts college located in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is noted for its leadership in the use of technology to enhance the teaching and learning process. By joining World Community Grid, Marist has the potential to contribute more than 7,000 PCs and laptops to this humanitarian effort.

"Joining World Community Grid was a natural for us," said Marist College President Dennis J. Murray. "With our emphasis on technology and our commitment to serving others, we saw this opportunity as a great way to get our students directly involved in a very innovative project first hand. By joining World Community Grid, they are learning about the power of grid computing while at the same time giving back to society, which is in keeping with the Marist mission."

Grid computing is a rapidly emerging technology that can bring together the collective power of thousands or millions of individual computers to create a giant "virtual" system with massive computational strength. With more than 650 million PCs in use around the world, World Community Grid is working to create the world's largest grid solely for humanitarian purposes -- in essence a virtual supercomputer for good works.

World Community Grid has the capacity to run five to six projects a year for public and not-for-profit organizations. Research results will be made available to the world research community. Projects in the following disciplines will be considered:

* Medical Research - Genomics, proteomics, epidemiology, and biological
system research
* Environmental Research - Ecology, climatology, pollution, and
preservation
* Basic Research - Human health and welfare related studies

Researchers and scientists interested in having their work considered for use on World Community Grid can apply via a Request for Proposals at: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/submit_a_proposal.html.

Individuals can volunteer their idle and unused computing power by downloading World Community Grid's free software and registering at http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. For more information about grid computing at IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/grid. For more information on IBM's philanthropic efforts, visit http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ibmgives.

About Marist College

Marist is an independent, comprehensive liberal arts college nationally recognized for its leadership in the use of technology in and out of the classroom. Named by The Princeton Review as one of "The Best 357 Colleges" in America and a "top tier" college by U.S. News and World Report, Marist's 175-acre campus is located along the eastern shore of the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Marist is home to one of only three open source development labs in the world. With 30 undergraduate majors and eight master's degree programs, including numerous online offerings, Marist is dedicated to the development of the whole person in a way that will prepare graduates for an enlightened, sensitive and productive life in the global community of the 21st century.

Contacts: Catherine Collins Tim Massie
IBM Marist College
646-598-5507 845-575-3171
ckc@us.ibm.com timmian.massie@marist.edu


If this is a done deal, does anyone at WCG have any additional info?