Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting

September 27-30, 2004
Austin, TX

Video-on-Demand available here.

Presentations are available on the program page. They are posted as they are received.

Please email your presentations to presentations@internet2.edu

Meeting Summary

The Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting was held Monday, September 27 through Thursday, September 30, 2004, at the Hilton Austin in Austin, Texas. Approximately 735 individuals from a wide range of communities and disciplines registered for the Meeting. The meeting officially began on Tuesday morning, September 28 and concluded at noon on Thursday, September 30. Pre- and post-meeting activities, including tutorials, working group meetings, and workshops, were held on Sunday, September 26, Monday, September 27, Thursday, September 30, and Friday, October 1.

On Monday evening, the Welcome Reception at the hotel gave attendees a chance to relax as the meeting got underway. On Tuesday evening, attendees were treated to a full evening of enjoyment at the University of Texas, including a pre-event reception, a live vs. virtual performance event featuring the Miro Quartet, and a post-event coffee and dessert reception.

Thirteen advanced applications demos were featured at the Fall Meeting, showing a wide range of technology applications--from disaster relief emergency medical services to Internet2 Commons videoconferencing and collaboration tools to the connection of digital acoustical pianos over IP. Poster Sessions were scheduled during the Fall meeting and were well received. The newly christened Corporate Perspectives Forum garnered 10 participants who took advantage of the opportunity to showcase their organizations.

The Fall Meeting featured over 130 organized sessions, of which 45 were concurrent presentations during the main program, 22 were birds-of-a-feather and special interest group sessions, 11 were workshops and tutorials, 18 were working groups, and 29 were other affiliated meetings.

Topics included collaborative approaches, case studies, cyber infrastructure, and technical implications of advanced applications. Network infrastructure, K20, middleware, and security were also areas of focus at the meeting. The program included updates on regional and national networking initiatives, including Abilene, HOPI, Texas LEARN, and National LambdaRail.

Internet2 President Doug Van Houweling welcomed attendees at the Opening Plenary on Tuesday, September 28. He was joined by Texas Governor Richard Perry and Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Plenary speaker was Dr. Larry Faulkner, President of the University of Texas at Austin and President, Internet2 Board of Trustees. His talk, "Convergence and Crystallization in Networking for Research and Education,” focused on the forces and resources, institutions and associations, and ideas and desires that are converging to enable the synthesis of a new, much more potent, networking environment.

Dr. Henry Chueh, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Laboratory of Computer Science, and Director of Informatics at the MGH Clinical Research Program and the MGH Cardiac Program, gave the Closing Plenary on Thursday, September 30. His presentation, “Unlocking Our Treasures: Enhancing Access to Tissue for Genomics Research,” demonstrated the Shared Pathology Informatics Network (SPIN) initiative, which uses Internet2's high-speed, reliable network infrastructure and peer-to-peer networks to share tissue samples and research into genetic causes of disease.

During the Closing Plenary, Rich Carlson, Internet2, awarded the Land Speed Record to Sprint Corporation and the Swedish University Network (SUNET) for successfully transferring over 1830 gigabytes of data in approximately 60 minutes across nearly 29,000 kilometers of networks at a rate of 4.31 gigabits per second--4000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection.

Coming Soon!

The Spring 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting will be held at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, May 2-5. The Internet2 website will publish details of the meeting starting in January 2005.