Guest post by May Alali

Lebanon joined the CERN family in 2016 through the signature of an International Cooperation Agreement and the affiliation of four of its top universities to CMS. Amid the many daunting challenges, one project, initiated to support the research capacity of the country, is particularly at risk: High-Performance Computing for Lebanon (HPC4L). In these difficult times, Lebanon needs every help to benefit from this project. That's why CMS scientists, in collaboration with the Sharing Knowledge Foundation (SKF), are reaching out for donations. Here's what we, Lebanese scientists at CERN/CMS, think about it.

“HPC4L isn’t any project. It doesn’t seek only to support research capacity in Lebanon but to recognize it, inspire it, and eventually celebrate it. As young Lebanese scientists, we travel, if we can, in search of a future like us, full of promise. But what if the seed flies to our home, so fertile for growing more opportunities? What if the education that once began there progresses there? What if it becomes possible to rise very near our home universities, families, and land? What if you can contribute to making it happen?” – May Alali

“During my PhD studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the American University of Beirut, I acquired research expertise in the field of machine intelligence. In fact, state-of-the-art deep learning machine learning models require high-performance computing for learning and tuning model parameters. Sadly, access to such machines was very limited and timed between PhD students, causing significant delays in evaluating our research methods. Thanks to the CMS-HPC4L project, researchers would be able to significantly accelerate their experiments' simulations and secure their chances in contributing to the scientific and engineering community on a larger scale.” – Gilbert Badaro

“Having worked as an undergraduate researcher at the American University of Beirut, I have experienced first-hand the incredible potential of the research being conducted by faculty members in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the innovative spirit that characterizes Lebanese institutions has always been held back by limited resources. A project like HPC4L would not only empower researchers in the country to carry out their research on a much higher level but would also open up a completely different world of possibilities that were up until now, out of the reach of this brilliant community.” – Georgio El-Helou

“Lebanon is passing through economic crashes that will affect the teaching sectors. These impacts will reach schools and universities, preventing them from providing the needed budget to serve their essential needs. The HPC4L project can help these sectors to keep their production levels high in simulations, calculations, and data analysis. This initiative will help our universities in Lebanon stand up and move forward during this tough period! A lot of enthusiastic students deserve the chance to be up to date in their field!” – Maytham Ezzeddine

“Due to the increasing complexity of models in different research projects such as weather forecast, genome tracing, solving engineering simulations, etc., high power computing centres are a must-have for research facilities to grow. Therefore, with the opportunity that HPC4L gives us, the participating universities will profit from an advanced structure that will improve the overall quality of research findings. And it will open the gate to bigger projects as much as it will benefit the students using these facilities.” – Hadi Kanso

“Studying my engineering diploma at the Lebanese University gave me the chance to see the potential of the research conducted as well as the problems the researchers face. One of the biggest problems when it comes to final year projects, for instance, is to complete the work and get reliable results with the limited computing resources, where students/researchers must simplify their models and studies a lot to cope with the available ones. HPC4L will help solve this and allow the researchers to carry their studies to a completely new level.” – Ali Karaki

Please visit cern.ch/fundraiser-lebanon to find out more, including how you can be involved. 

Additionally for more information: https://home.cern/news/news/knowledge-sharing/cms-launches-initiative-support-lebanese-colleagues

The views expressed in CMS blogs are personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent official views of the CMS collaboration.