North Dakota State University is awarded funds to organize a virtual conference on genomics and bioinformatics to be held on the access grid September 21-22, 2006. The Sixth Virtual Conference on Genomics and Bioinformatics is to be held on the 21st & 22nd of September, 2006 on the campus of North Dakota State University and around the world via Access Grid and Real Player technologies. In short, the objectives of the conference meetings are: to eliminate geographical and economic barriers for researchers around the world; to facilitate the exchange of ideas through new modes of collaboration; to achieve representation of underrepresented in genomics and bioinformatics; to promote learning and enhance the educational infrastructure. One of the goals of the conference is to facilitate the exchange of ideas among renowned researchers all over the world by directly overcoming geographical and economic barriers through the use of the Access Grid and the threaded forum technologies which are new computer-supported collaboration tools. The conference will be broadcast live and as a delayed video streaming using the Access Grid and Live Internet Video streaming (Real Player) technologies. The Access Grid is a virtual collaboration tool designed to create a compelling interactive system that facilitates collaboration among physically separated spaces and it is now available at over 150 institutions worldwide. Every participant in the conference can have a dialogue with the speakers, although only those on the Access Grid will be able to achieve this face-to-face. The main focus of the conference this year is "Women in Biosciences". Several active steps with respect to conference participation, organization committee and presenter selection will be taken to promote this conference among women. As in previous years another important goal for the conference is the promotion of learning and the enhancement of the educational infrastructure by providing students with different ways to participate, offering the conference without a registration fee, inviting K12 students to participate at any Access Grid location or any registered Real Player location, making conference audio visual material available on the web after the conference, and to continue to establish the new Advanced Bioinformatics Systems (CSCI-783) course at North Dakota State University. The course will attract not only graduate students at NDSU but also graduate students from all over the world.
