Enrica Porcari (Information Technology Department Head), John Ellis (Sharing Knowledge Foundation), Rayan Saiid (Ambassador, Deputy Permanent Representative of Lebanon to international organisations in Geneva), Joachim Mnich (Director for Research and Computing) and Martin Gastal (advisor for relations with Lebanon) stand among the servers. (Image: CERN)
Since 2012, CERN has regularly donated computing equipment that no longer meets its highly specific requirements on efficiency but is still more than adequate for less exacting environments. To date, a total of 2524 servers and 150 network switches have been donated by CERN to countries and international organisations, namely Algeria, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, Lebanon, Nepal, Palestine, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, and the SESAME laboratory in Jordan. CERN strives to maximise its positive impact on society: these donations can play an important role in providing opportunities for researchers and students in their home countries, thus helping to avoid so-called ‘brain-drain’ scenarios.
