The 6th Annual Access Grid (AG) Retreat will be held May 15-17, 2006 at the Michigan Information and Technology Center (MITC) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Completed in 2005, the MITC is equipped with multimedia/videoconferencing facilities and next-generation Internet connectivity designed to showcase the advanced-technology industry. The MITC building is the new home of Internet2, the co-host of this year's Access Grid Retreat.

The Access Grid is an ensemble of resources including multimedia large-format displays, presentation and interactive environments, and interfaces to Grid middleware and to visualization environments. These resources are used to support group-to-group interactions across the Grid. For example, the AG is used for large-scale distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials, and training. The Access Grid began as a community effort in terms of development, support, education, and training and it continues to grow as a result of this approach. The AG Retreats, an annual tradition, reflect this community involvement and are critical to the continued development, utility, and improvement of the AG.

The Access Grid Retreat is an ideal environment for the AG community to share recent experiences and research findings, to present ideas for future AG technical directions, and to train and educate AG newcomers. Two tracks of sessions allow participants to focus on either AG technical issues or activities related to AG operations. This annual meeting will not be broadcast over the Access Grid, but, as with past retreats, focus on bringing the global community together with face-to-face discussions on topics ranging from AG collaboration experiences to node installation and troubleshooting to AG development directions. Given that this year's AG Retreat will be located in Internet2 facilities, presenters are encouraged to include demonstrations that leverage the excellent network capabilities available.