Powering the Future
April 19-20, 2004 in Montreal, Canada

special members' field trip
CAE, Inc
Wednesday, April 21, 2004

conference overview
As much as "information is power" was a mantra of the last century, perhaps today's should be information needs power. Some estimates suggest it now takes a pound of coal to create, package, store, and move 2 MB of data. While the electricity bills for running and cooling computers might not be part of an IT budget, someone has to pay for all that power consumption.

Sporadic energy failures pose a significant economic threat to an organization's operations; no energy means no heat, no light, no power, no water, no waste treatment, no transportation, no IT, no communications -- in short, no GDP and no security. The World Wide Web will only be as wide as the energy grid and the availability of power to run it.

At this conference, we'll take a fresh look at the production, storage, transmission and management of energy. We think some of the future trends will mirror what has happened in computing and communications: energy systems will be more decentralized (like self-powered houses, for instance), and they will be intertwined much more deeply with information networks. We'll examine large-scale systems (hydro, wind, solar) and very small ones (fuel cells, micro turbines, power harvesting). We will explore promising scientific breakthroughs and the potential of new businesses, both large-scale utilities with new entrepreneurial opportunities, and small companies breaking new ground.

From every standpoint -- from perspectives of business success, security, national and world interest -- energy and the intelligent management of power are not just big deals in our new century. They could prove to be the biggest deals, and the biggest deal breakers, yet.

A number of recent strategic forecasts indicate an impending crash in the oil economy, probably much sooner than we're prepared to adjust. In the shorter term, severe power blackouts in 2003 across the US, Canada, and the UK were a reminder of our spectacular vulnerabilities. Microblackouts happen every day to mobile users whose phones and laptops run out of juice, often at the most awkward moment. The unwiring of factory floors, warehouses, and the field at large cannot happen without portable energy sources. To be wireless, we must first be cordless. But we don't want to be powerless.

These hurdles are huge, but not insurmountable. They range from the ultramicro to the supermacro. What's it going to take to keep the world's increasingly electronic, interconnected and wireless society humming? How will we secure energy supplies and maintain economies in the coming two decades? Can we make an order of magnitude leap in reliability, efficiency, and robustness that will positively affect our organizations and lives? What impact will we see if power technologies become more like the IT infrastructure: diffuse, distributed, self-adjusting, and robust in the face of problems. With new kinds of nano-scale computing, can nano-scale power be far behind? These are truly grand challenges and they are going to demand serious breakthroughs. The implications for industry, governments, and home, fixed and mobile operations, and normal and secure applications, are profound.

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speakers
Dr. Stanley Bull, Associate Director, Science and Technology, National Renewable Energy Lab
Mr. Jack Casazza, President, American Education Institute
Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, Professor of Materials, MIT
Mr. Shalom Daskal, CEO, Power Paper Ltd.
Mr. Robert DiMatteo, Technical Director, MTPV Power Sources, C.S. Draper Labs
Doug Duimering, Vice President, Vestas Canadian Wind Technology
Mr. David Eichinger, Manager, General Motors Fuel Cell Activities
Dr. Alan H. Epstein, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT
Carl Imhoff, Engineer, Energy Operations, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Dr. Innocent Kamwa, Principal Research Scientist, Hydro-Québec Research Institute
Mr. Jean-René Marcoux, President and COO, Hydro-Québec CapiTech
Mr. George Mueller, Chairman and CEO, Color Kinetics, Inc.
Dr. Joseph Paradiso, Associate Professor and Sony Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
Mr. Philip Robinson, VP Engineering, Amperion, Inc.
Dr. Joseph Romm, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Energy and Climate Solutions
Dr. Lanny Schmidt, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota

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field trip description
CAE is an advanced technology company focused on the delivery of training and control systems solutions to the aerospace, defense, and maritime sectors.

The company is organized into three business units: Civil Simulation and Training (CS&T), Military Simulation and Training (MS&T), and Marine Controls. CS&T provides flight simulators, training services, and related products and activities to commercial airlines and the business aviation community. The unit operates a variety of training centers worldwide and has broad leadership across the sector. MS&T provides military flight and land training systems to global defense customers in addition to offering turnkey training services in the UK and the United States to these customers. The business unit is a leading player in the global military flight simulation market. In marine controls, CAE is a leading provider of platform management, steering control, navigation, and other ship control systems to both the naval and commercial shipping sectors.

During our visit to CAE, we will hear about and see demonstrations of some of the technologies that are rapidly extending the reach of simulation. New visual system solutions as applied to current programs will be illustrated and we will see how this sector is evolving. In addition, a demonstration of simulation applications in the area of system design and development will be provided and we will see how simulation environments can be used for "man in the loop" system analysis. Time permitting, CAE’s web-based simulation that allows aircrews to access their training remotely will be shown.

Any visit to CAE would not be complete without an opportunity to fly on one of their full flight simulators, and we will arrange for this prior to the conclusion of the field trip.

For additional information, please visit www.cae.com.

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