JOE: THE PROFESSOR | NAOMI: THE NEXT GENERATION

Professor Joe Benke has been pushing the boundaries of biological science for over thirty years. From his college days in Munich, through his university years in Amsterdam and doctorate in Vienna, to his current role in Edinburgh, he has been entirely reliant on computing and the internet for his work or study. Now, his daughter Naomi is taking the early steps in her scientific career.

HIGH-SPEED NETWORKS, CONNECTED INSTITUTIONS, A VAST NEW WORLD FOR RESEARCHERS

At university and at the start of his career, Joe worked with localised databases and local area networks, later sharing files with his peers over email, but just as often meeting in person armed with USB sticks to discuss, collaborate, and brainstorm.

As his career developed, so came the rapid advances in high-speed connectivity and the various applications it enabled, and his horizons and opportunities expanded enormously. Thanks to dedicated interconnectivity between research institutions, he could now work closely with biologists across the world as if they were in the same building. Sharing vast amounts of data across networks for analysis now happened in seconds. Services such as eduTEAMS allow collaborations between academic and non-academic organisations seamlessly. Breaking down barriers to Public/Private collaboration.

Computing requirements were no longer a challenge: research was unleashed, results were accelerated.

In later years, visiting colleagues in other countries, he could take his digital identity with him, using his eduGAIN interfederated institutional login to access shared repositories in partner organisations. Previously unimaginable amounts of data could be analysed and stored in the cloud, worked on in real-time, face-to-face with colleagues via low latency video links.

Now, he presents his findings to hundreds of attendees at seminars and conferences from the comfort of his home, leading to further collaboration with new projects and new areas of research. Joe is perpetually amazed at the changes in technology he has seen in his career, from slow cumbersome systems to a globally connected world.

GLOBAL RESEARCH PROGRAMMES, SUPERCOMPUTERS, "AND IT ALL JUST WORKS"

Today, almost full circle, his daughter Naomi Benke has recently completed her studies (for now) in Barcelona and is working in a global research programme, benefiting not just from the supercomputers invisibly linked across Europe and beyond, but from shared repositories in related disciplines that could take her and her research in a new, undiscovered direction.

Naomi never had much interest in the computing side and almost takes it for granted that it just works, seamlessly, and lets her focus on her job. “That’s how it should be, right?” She understands that the institutions she interacts with are interconnected nationally, internationally, and ultimately globally, but thinks little of how it works and rather how it benefits her work.

Outside her work Naomi benefits from services such as eduroam (and has done throughout her schooling) and now uses it at her favourite coffee shop, or even at the airport when traveling to visit her partner studying in Tallin.

She and her partner expect to continue their studies in the future. With eduID, their digital student identities are no longer tied to their institutions, meaning they can continue their studies as and when (and where) they want to, using their identity to access services and applications they need.

And in the near future, Naomi will benefit from technology changes such as Quantum and the EuroHPC programme, which will turbocharge not just the world of scientific research but the opportunities for millions of citizens just like her.

Throughout all of this, both Joe and Naomi in their work and studies continue to rely heavily on GÉANT: by nature, invisible.