Navajo Tech Internet to the Hogan
From Eduwiki
Navajo Technical College (NTC)- being encouraged by their participation in the MSI-CIEC planning meeting and MSI-CI Institute, both held at MSI-CIEC partner San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), as well as the MSI Resource Provider workshop done with the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) (also a partner) and building on a relationship with the TeraGrid (another partner)- commenced their building of high-performance networking and cluster and grid computing for NTC and the Navajo nation with the “Internet to the Hogan” celebration. Under the strong leadership of Tom Davis, Dean of Instruction, NTC, and highly regarded national leader in technology for TCUs, NTC will work with the University of New Mexico (UNM), a leading HSI, and the SDSC High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) to connect to the National Lambda Rail (NLR) and Internet2 at OC-3 (155 Mbps) speeds. HPWREN has trained NTC staff and a talented NTC student who in turn is teaching other NTC staff and students to do the actual building and maintenance of the wireless towers and network connections. Additionally, through Scott Lathrop, TeraGrid education Director and current chair of the Supercomputer ’07 education committee, a “Little Fe” supercomputing computer cluster was donated to NTC which is among the first to establish the Diné Grid, part of the Navajo nation’s local CyberInfrastructure. NTC will expand their educational degree offerings through the Ph.D. and strengthen the Navajo STEM education pipeline through partnerships with Navajo K-12 schools and other colleges and universities. Jared Ribble the NTC student who with other NTC staff attended all the MSI-CIEC meetings is the talented student who will train the other NTC students and together build the Navajo CI. Jared also hopes to pursue his masters and Ph.D. through NTC. Jared and Navajo Tech are illustrative examples of the vision and mission of MSI-CIEC. MSI-CIEC including the University of New Mexico and MSI-CIEC CI partners, especially SDSC and TeraGrid, will continue to work with Navajo Tech to bring about its CI vision, and broaden the participation of Native Americans and Hispanics into the CI enabled workforce.
