The deployment of cloud infrastructure, which promises to advance democratizing access to scientific computing, faces a number of challenges. The complexity of navigating the abundance of available open-source tools, the lack of training and support to make good use of them, and the scarcity of appropriate resources—especially in historically marginalized communities—limit the reach and potential of cloud computing workflows.
This project sought to create a community-based cloud infrastructure service for the biosciences, based on open and inclusive community practices, the infrastructure that would enable those practices, and a ’train the trainer’ approach to impulse local community leaders to share their infrastructure knowledge with others in their communities.
Catalyst took shape as a collaborative project between MetaDocencia and 2i2c, The Carpentries, CSSCE, IOI, and OLS. The project was funded in 2022 by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and publicly launched as Catalyst Project to serve communities in Africa and Latin America.
MetaDocencia took on the key role of identifying and contacting various Latin American communities that could benefit from participating. By joining the Catalyst Project, they gained access to:
- A free, cloud-based JupyterHub virtual machine with large storage and computing capacity, for one year
- Technical support and training to make full use of that resource
- A train the trainer program to expand teaching skills, and enable knowledge transfer to their local communities
- Training and mentoring in Open Science to develop good leadership practices for transparent and accessible research
- Resources contextualized in Spanish for Latin American communities
- Shaping the project governance to help sustain, scale, and maximize its impact
Testimonials from some of the 10 Latin American communities that participated in the first edition of the project:
Participating in the Catalyst project was very important for UNC Supercómputo. We learned to operate within a funding and collaboration ecosystem that was new to us. We met and made ourselves known, we valued and were valued in larger networks across Latin America and Africa. The plan to build a local cloud for JupyterHub is a project that continues to advance and has great potential now and into the future. Nicolás Wolovick Director UNC Supercómputo
Participating in Catalyst allowed us to test and determine the infrastructure needed for a sustainable ecosystem with trained local leaders. We confirmed that open access to this infrastructure is vital to empowering local research and amplifying regional scientific impact. Andres Olivera Network Manager, LABI
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