Scilab Project in China

The objective of this project is to promote SCILAB in China. SCILAB is the famous open source software for scientific computing. Originally created by INRIA, the Scilab Consortium has joint in July 2008 the Digiteo Foundation, first world-class research in the Île-de-France area, dedicated to Information Science and Technology. Since more than a decade, SCILAB has been extensively received by scientists, engineers and technicians, and practitioners in both academia and industry, which has been recognized as the best substitute for commercial software like Matlab, Xmath and Matrix, and distributed currently at the speed of 50,000 copies per month in all over the world.

SCILAB has brought us not only powerful functions in scientific computing, but also its free spirit of open source. The free spirit of open source software and technology makes far-reaching sense to China’s software industry in terms of liberalization from the international Commercial software companies. Therefore, research institutes and governmental sessions concerned in China and France have co-developed and been supporting SCILAB activities in China. From this point of view, SCILAB promotion in China setups an broad bridge between the researchers in China and in France, and provides the opportunities for Chinese researchers, engineers and students to study and to express their talent by means of competition and communication with Chinese and French industrial partners.

In 2001, LIAMA organized the first Sino-French SCILAB workshop in Beijing, which was the starting point of a fruitful collaboration between LIAMA and INRIA. After that, the events became annual, and the contest Awards Ceremony followed by the Sino-French SCILAB workshop. It took place in Shanghai in 2002, in Xian in 2003, in Xiamen in 2004, in Wuhan in 2005, Hangzhou in 2006, Nanhai in 2007, Liuzhou in 2008 and Guiyang in 2009. This contest is very important because it makes SCILAB known in Chinese Universities and it provides SCILAB with good quality toolboxes.
More information: http://www.scilab.org.cn/

Dr. LI Shi
SCILAB Promotion Manager
leeshi AT liama.ia.ac.cn

Dr. Claude.GOMEZ
French Coordinator
SCILAB Consortium
claude.gomez AT scilab.org

In the first Scilab Committee meeting in LIAMA in Jan. 17, it has been decided to create the “Scilab Committee” chaired by LI Shi (LIAMA) with the participation of Beihang University, Capital Normal University, Ecole Centrale de Pékin, LIAMA, Xiamen University, Zhejian Univeristy and the Scilab Consortium. The purpose of the Scilab Committee is to prepare a future association for Scilab in China, named SCILAB Consortium in China. A number of tasks have been defined to achieve this goal. The members of SCILAB Committee include:

• Prof. CAI Jun (Xiamen University )
• Claude Gomez (Scilab Consortium/INRIA)
• Prof. HU Baogang (LIAMA)
• Prof. HUANG Duo (Capital Normal University)
• Dr. LI Shi (LIAMA)
• Prof. MA Longhua(Zhejiang University)
• Prof. QIN Shiyin (Beihang University)
• Marc Zolver (Ecole Centrale de Pékin)