This project was providing a virtual conference centre using advanced communication technologies and concepts to support the promotion of e-infrastructure topics in Europe and around the world.

Main goal of GLOBAL project is to allow and help research projects to disseminate their results and training events to a wider audience located in multiple geographical locations through the organization of virtual conferences. GLOBAL will provide a user-centric interface for planning, creation, announcement, coordination, content management and realisation of virtual conferences with open and wide participation. Through these virtual conferences the participating users will be able to exchange information on e-infrastructure development in their region, identify partners for future collaboration and exchange and discuss synergies between their running initiatives.

The virtual conference events will provide advanced videoconferencing and collaboration tools and support to the participants. Each event will be recorded and stored on a repository together with documents and outcomes for future consultation. The virtual conference centre will provide three main functions focused on usability: a virtual auditorium, for planning, coordination and management of the virtual events, an event repository, to store the recordings and outcomes of the events, and a virtual corridor, which will support networking and partnership building amongst the participants.

Conferences supported by GLOBAL:

1. GEANT2 (Bled, Slovenia, March 2008)
2. TERENA Networking Conference (Brugge, Belgium, May 2008)
3. EGEE 08 Conference – Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (Istanbul, Turkey, September 2008)
4. BELIEF-6CHOICE India Symposium (New Delhi, January 2009)
5. TERENA Networking Conference 2009 (Malaga, June 2009)
6. GLOBAL e-Infrastructure Networking Event I (June, 2009)
7. GLOBAL e-Infrastructure Networking Event II (July, 2009)
8. 4th International BELIEF symposium (São Paulo, July, 2009)
9. EULAKS Summer School (Mexico, August, 2009)
10. 5th BELIEF Symposium & CHPC National Meeting 2009 (Johannesburg, December, 2009)
11. EGEE, Enabling Grids for E-sciencE, 5th User Forum (Uppsala, Sweden, April 2010)
12. Isabel v5 Seminar (Fully distributed event, April 2010)
13. 1st ERINA4Africa Workshop: Investigating Best Practices for e-Infrastructure Application Development (Kigali, Rwanda, April 2010)
14. CLARATec – “Plataforma de videoconferencia Isabel y VCC” (Fully distributed event, April 2010)
15. TERENA Networking Conference 2010 (Vilnius, May 31–Jun 3, 2010)
16. IST Africa (May 19–21, 2010)
17. e-IRG (June, 2010)
18. GLOBAL InfoDay for America (distributed, June 11, 2010)
19. GLOBAL Plaza Workshop (distributed, 13th September)
20. EGI Technical Forum 2010 (Amsterdam, September 14-17)
21. Online lecture from Venezuela (distributed, September, 17)
22. ICT – ECTel joint event (Brussels, September, 27-29)
23. W3C Multilingual Workshop (Madrid, October, 26-27)
24. Jornadas Cátedras Telefónica (Madrid, November, 3, 2010)
25. Joint GLOBAL and 6CHOICE Event (Madrid, November 18, 2010)

Project Partners

• Zentrum für Soziale Innovation (ZSI), Austria
  www.zsi.at
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain
  www.upm.es
• Agora Systems S.A. (ASSA), Spain
  www.agora-2000.com
• Cooperación Latino Americana de Redes Avanzadas (CLARA), Uruguay
  www.redclara.net
• University College London (UCL), UK
  www.ucl.ac.uk
• Jozef Stefan Institute (JSI), Slovenia
  www.ijs.si
• Ubuntunet (Ubuntunet), Malawi
  www.ubuntunet.net