The Middle East/North Africa (MENA) Summer School is an annual two weeks' course in computing aimed at young scientists from developing countries. The course emphasizes the importance of the relevant scientific foundations for engineering correct,  reliable and efficient computing systems. The Summer School will have a specific theme each year. The state of the art of several topics related to the central theme will be presented by well known international speakers. The Summer School will aim at the dissemination of advanced scientific knowledge and the promotion of international contacts among scientists and, in particular, between MENA scientists and those from Europe, America, and Australia. 

The MENA Summer School is jointly organized by the Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences (CAMS), the United Nation University-International Institute of Software Technology (UNU/IIST) and South Bank University. CAMS is a regional centre founded in 1998 by a an international committee of scientists; among them is Professor Sir Michael Atiyah (a field medallist in Mathematics, former president of the Royal Society, Master of St Catherine College, head of UK's EPSRC and founder of Isaac Newton's Institute, Cambridge) who is currently the chairman of its advisory board.

The central theme of the this year's MENA Summer School is on parallel, distributed, mobile, and internet computing: theory, methods, applications and research directions. The topics covered will discuss notations for describing distributed systems, methods for designing their architectures as networks of interacting components, models for visualizing, animating, and testing their behaviours, mathematical frameworks for proving their properties and technologies for realizing their designs. The main emphasis will be on the science underpinning the construction of reliable, flexible, efficient, and secure distributed systems. At the end of each topic, there will be a session on current problems and future research directions.

Who Should Attend?
The course is intended primarily for academics, graduate students and researchers who would like to form a deeper understanding of this field and an appreciation of the current issues and of the future research directions. The course will also appeals to professionals interested  in developing their knowledge and expertise in this area.
Previous training and experience in computing as well as in related sciences, mathematics or engineering are most useful.

Speakers include:
Notations, architectures and models for describing communicating systems:

• Jeff Magee, Imperial College, University of London, UK. Models, design, visualization, and animation.
• Ali Abdallah, Ali Abdallah, South Bank University, UK. Building distributed systems from communicating components.

• Jeff Sanders, Oxford University, UK. Probabilistic reasoning for  distributed systems.
• Jifeng He, United Nations University, Macau. Theoretical foundations for concurrency.

• Salim Hariri, University of Arizona, USA. Networking and  Internet Computing.
• Mark Baker, Portsmouth University, UK. Parallel and distributed computing, Java and Grid technologies.

• Dieter Gollmann,  Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. Security of Distributed Systems.
• Bart Preneel, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium. Cryptography and Network Security.

• Albert Zomaya, CISCO Systems Chair Professor of Internetworking. The University of Sydney, Australia. Mobile Communications and Computing.
• Hesham Rewini, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA. Distributed and Mobile Computing.

• Peter Coveney, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.  Scientific modelling, visualizations, and  e-science.
• Theoharis Theoharis, University of Athens, Greece. 3D Graphics, distributed databases. 

The MENA Summer School will be hosted by The Centre of Advanced Mathematical Science, located inside the attractive campus of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, one of the oldest universities in the Middle East. 

Accommodation Arrangements
Student participants will be accommodated in students' dormitories at The American University of Beirut, at a cost of 12 US$ per night. A range of good hotels within a short walking distance from the AUB campus is available:
 

Getting Around, Maps 
The hotels  and student dormitories are within a short walk from the School's lecture hall in the American University of Beirut. Additional travel and tourist information can be found here.

Cost
The registration fee is 500 US$ to include all printed material, lunches and refreshments. The accommodation fee for the period 07-20 July (13 nights) in students dormitories (breakfast not included) is around 150 US$. Living cost in Beirut for the non covered items can be less than 10 US$ per day. 

A number of grants will be provided to cover the expenses. Grants for prospective participants, covering costs of registration fees, accommodation and travel can be applied for (see Online Application Form below).

Applications to participate in the Summer School must be filled online using the Online Application Form.
The applications will be considered with due regard to a fair distribution of the 80 places available to applicants from the various countries. A letter of recommendation by the home department or institution is requested. Applications without a letter of recommendation cannot be taken into consideration. We ensure confidentiality. Personal information will be used for the selection process only. 

The directors and the organizing committee of the MENA Summer School do not assume any responsibility or any liability for persons participating in the Summer School.

Deadline for applications: May 10, 2002. 
Notification of acceptance: May 20, 2002. 
Deadline for registrations: June 10, 2002. 
Dates of Summer School: July 8 - July 19, 2002.

Excursion trips during weekend (12/13 July) to the famous Roman remains of Baalbeck, the Phoenician town of Byblos, Jeita Grotto, and/or Tripoli can be organized. Further details will be announced later. After the daily lectures, you are welcome to take a quick dip at the American University Beach on the Mediterranean Sea (water temperature about 30 degrees Celsius).

Chairman: Ali Chamseddine (CAMS) 
Committee: Ramzi Haraty (LAU), Ayman Kayssi (AUB), Etienne Khayat (SBU)

Queries should be emailed to menass@sbu.ac.uk.

Letters of recommendations can be posted, emailed or faxed to:
   MENA Summer School
   Centre of Advanced Mathematical Science
   College Hall, Room 425, American University of Beirut
   P.O. Box: 11-0236, Beirut, Lebanon 
   Fax: (+961) 1 365087