The 2009 CASPER workshop will be hosted by SKA SA in the heart of the Mother City, Cape Town, South Africa from the 28th September through 2nd October. Registration is now closed.

What to expect

The itinerary is likely to include:

• Introductory presentations and tutorials to get new users started with CASPER.

• Hands-on tutorials with the new ROACH hardware and the opportunity to discuss ROACH with its designers.
• Advanced uses and digging into the CASPER toolflow.
• Get all your "How would I... " or "Why does it... " questions answered.
• Presentations from existing CASPER hardware users.
• Reports on first ROACH deployments.
• Hear about the future of CASPER and what we have planned for the next year.
• Help us design the next generation computing platform and new ADCs and DACs, including high-speed sampling options (6GSa/s, 20GSa/s) during our hardware planning discussion.

We would encourage you to arrive a little earlier, or stay a little longer to do some touring of South Africa and the surrounding Western Cape.

Costs

The CASPER 2009 Workshop is sponsored by SKA SA/MeerKAT and attendance is free; however, attendees will need to arrange for their own transport and accommodation.

There is limited financial aid available for students. Financial aid selection will be based on merit, at the discretion of SKA SA. Those wishing to apply can email a short motivation to Alan Langman before 30th June 2009.

Accommodation

Accommodation costs for nearby hotels start from USD50 per person per night. Those flying in from overseas will need to arrange for transport from Cape Town International Airport (CPT) to their hotel. Many of the hotels offer shuttle services. For a list of nearby Hotels please take a look at CASPER Workshop 2009 Accomodation

Conference Venue

We are fortunate to have secured the Atlantic Imbizo Conference facility at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, in Cape Town, South Africa for the duration of the workshop. We will primarily be using their auditorium room. Take a tour of the venue here.

For directions to the venue, you can take a look at the map on the Atlantic Imbizo website, or follow these directions

Program

CASPER Workshop 2009 Program list all the talks, discussions and tutorials we hope to cover at the workshop. Please note that all talks except for the first few will be 20 minutes in duration with 5 minutes for questions and 5 minutes to change over between speakers. Once again we will be recording all presentations and placing them online after the workshop. Could all presenters please ensure that their presentations are prepared using either Microsoft Powerpoint or Openoffice Presenter. PDF files will also be supported.

List of Participants

A current list of participants can be found here.