Two sessions were dedicated to International Partners. International speakers covered grid projects in Australia, Scandinavia, Europe, North America (Canada), South America (Brazil) and Asia. It was gratifying to see the undeniable similarities in design and goals to our own OSG.

An interesting analogy was drawn by Manuel Delfino, who presented on the status of PIC and EGEE. He compared the current evolution of grid computing to that of the Internet, in which global scale commercialization has evolved a technology fostered by academics to its current state of mainstream infrastructure, and turned it into a key element of our everyday lives.

The sessions provided an important forum for international grid projects to cast out opportunities for forging stronger ties to the Open Science Grid. Sergio Novaes from Sao Paulo State University, Brazil proposed an initiative similar to the Latin America European E-Infrastructure (EELA). He proposes bridging Latin America with the U.S. through the OSG, promoting the OSG infrastructure in E-Sciences in Latin America while looking for joint funding support through a joint NSF-FAPESP partnership. Novaes would also like to provide educational outreach activities by organizing a Grid Summer School in Brazil.