Relevant issues to the region and the efforts made to solve them through advanced networks will be the main topic of an international seminar to be held in Guatemala on August 30th.

Six international experts will present papers about how the use of advanced networks has improved their work and has opened new opportunities in areas such as biodiversity, telemedicine, culture, climate change, digital libraries and repositories and disaster management.

The International Seminar “Advanced Network Applications” has been organized by the National Research and Education of Guatemala (RAGIE) and the National Council of Science and Technology of Guatemala (CONCYT), with the collaboration of Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) and the Latin America Cooperation of Advanced Networks (RedCLARA).

The activity will be held in Universidad del Valle, in Guatemala City and aims to present to academics and researches, some relevant examples about advanced internet applications in Latin America, and to demonstrate the potential of some projects in relevant  research fields and their necessity of e-infrastructure and high quality services.

Furthermore, the seminar will open an opportunity to analyze the collaborative applications in Latin America, which demands high broadband. The event will be transmitted by videoconference and streaming.

The opening will take place on Tuesday, August 30th at 8:00 am with the participation of Rosa María Amaya López, National Secretary of Science and Technology of Guatemala; Hector A. Centeno, Vice Presidential Counselor for Science and Technology and the President of RedCLARA and RAGIE, Luis R. Furlan who will refer to the importance of RedCLARA and advanced networks and the advantages it offer to researches, scientists and educators.

Biodiversity issue will be addressed by Dora Canhos, director of the Reference Center on Environmental Information CRIA, from Brazil. Efforts in simulation and environmental monitoring are crucial for Central America and it will be presented by Professor of the University of North Texas, USA, Miguel Acevedo.

Jaime Laffaille, president of the Foundation for the Prevention of Seismic Risk of the State of Mérida, FUNDAPRIS from Venezuela will also discuss the importance of advanced networks in such a fundamental issue for the region as disaster management. In addition, Expert Luiz Messina, coordinator of Telemedicine University Network from Brazil, RUTE, will expose about telemedicine project developed in this country. It is high user of advanced networks and has become an example at region.

The event will conclude with two interesting papers: one on Mesoamerican Digital Projects by Stephanie Wood from Wired Humanities Project, University of Oregon and the other about Libraries and Digital Repositories by Malgorzata Lisowska, librarian of the University of Rosario in Colombia and community leader in digital repositories and libraries community, which is part of RedCLARA (Colabora).