Frontiers of Scientific and Technical Data, Montreal, Canada

On September 29th some of the world’s top scientists and experts will gather in Montreal, Canada, for the 18th International CODATA Conference, Frontiers of Scientific and Technical Data. With scientific institutions from 5 continents represented, speakers from 37 countries will contribute to a program that offers a truly global snapshot of data and informatics today. The Conference is designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas and expose data specialists to the complexity and variety of scientific data needs among their colleagues in other disciplines.

The four-day program covers virtually every aspect of scientific and technical data with
190 contributed papers and 30 keynote and invited speakers. Some of the most renowned scientists and data experts in the world will address cross-cutting themes focusing on issues such as: data preservation and archiving, emerging tools and techniques for data handling, interoperability and data integration, legal issues, information economics and ethics in the use of scientific and technical data. Technical presentations by data experts will cover the most recent developments in biology, the physical sciences, earth and environmental sciences, engineering, health care, data and information science and the social sciences.

One of the conference highlights is the special open session on the evening of October 1st. Visualizations of our Planet`s Atmosphere, Land & Oceans will give the audience the chance to experience a virtual reality fly-through, witnessing dust storms in Africa and smoke plumes from fires in Mexico. In this multimedia presentation Dr. Fritz Hasler of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center illustrates how High-Definition Television (HDTV) is revolutionizing the way science is communicated today.

The Canadian and U.S. National Committees for CODATA will host this Conference. CODATA 2002 continues a 36-year tradition of serving international science by holding an open and exciting conference on the latest advances in scientific and technical data.