Gearing Up for SC12! A Note from the SC12 General Chair
Dear SC12 Community,
The excitement is already building for the big event in early November. No, I am not talking about the U.S. presidential elections, but SC12 - of course! As we head into the fall, our momentum is accelerating as nearly every week a new component of the SC12 program is finalized. Here are a few of the changes we have made for SC12 and some highlights of the conference thus far:
Like many of you, I had never been to the Salt Lake City area surrounding the convention center until we began planning SC12. My first visit convinced me what a perfect choice Salt Lake City is. There are great hotels in many price ranges within walking distance to the convention center. There are lots of dining options within a block or two of the convention center, including the brand new City Creek center across the street from the convention center.
The primary focus this year is on you—the conference attendee. We are working hard to make the conference more attendee friendly. To start with, we have simplified the number of named activities at the conference. For example, the Keynote, plenary speakers and Masterworks are all being combined into one program called "Invited Speakers."
In addition, we are working to lay out the conference space with attendee needs as the highest priority. To do this, we have created four attendee lounges throughout the convention center to provide a place to sit down and recharge both yourself and your electronic devices. Finally, we are trying to make it easier to find activities and meetings. For example, rather than printed cardboard signs, most meeting rooms will have electronic signs which will always be up to date reflecting any last-minute changes.
I am especially proud of the Technical Program we have assembled. After a record number of paper submissions, our program committee has selected 100 papers for presentations at SC12 – approximately 20 percent of those submitted. We have also had a record number of superb submissions for the posters and BOFs sessions.
In the exhibit hall, SC12 will feature the largest exhibit hall in conference history with industry exhibitors taking the most booth space in conference history (breaking a record set back at SC08). As a result, we expect another highly dynamic and energetic exhibit experience.
As you may know, there are new government travel guidelines that could limit participation at SC12 by U.S. federal government employees and contractors. As I write this, specific details are still being determined by the Department of Energy and the other agencies that participate in SC. I want to reassure you that SC has always been a strong conference that draws on a diverse community of attendees and participants across a wide range of academic, government, industry and international organizations. In fact, attendees from the U.S. government (including DOE labs) represented less than 10 percent of the overall SC11 attendance. Unfortunately, while participation by these organizations may be reduced for SC12 compared to previous years, we fully expect that federal agencies will continue their active participation, ensuring that the SC12 conference will have the high quality Technical Program for which it is well known. We also anticipate key management officials from federal labs and facilities to attend and engage in important discussions with industry and academic partners about HPC research, innovations and future requirements.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the conference planning team via email to info@info.supercomputing.org
Make your plans now to attend SC12 and see why SC stands for Super Conference! We look forward to seeing you soon!
Sincerely,
Jeff Hollingsworth
SC12 General Chair
Invited Plenary Speakers Provide Full Range of Exascale Perspectives
SC12 is pleased to announce an esteemed slate of plenary talks for its Invited Speakers program. This year, the program will feature:
Wednesday, November 14, 2012:
- Steve Scott, Chief Technology Officer of the Tesla business unit, NVIDIA.
Scott, previously chief architect for several successful supercomputing systems produced by Cray Inc., will speak about "The Evolution of GPU Accelerated Computing." He will provide insight into how graphics processing units have become common in energy efficient supercomputing systems and how they are likely to evolve in order to reach ambitious exascale goals.
- Mitsuo Yokokawa, Director of the Operations and Computer Technologies Division, RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science.
Yokokawa, who won a Gordon Bell Prize at SC11 and was engaged in the development project of the Earth Simulator, has a critical role in Japan's K Computer. His talk, entitled "The K Computer - Toward Its Productive Application to Our Life," will provide a detailed discussion of the K Computer's architecture and a historical perspective on its design and deployment. More importantly, he will highlight the application goals and successes of that system.
Thursday, November 15, 2012:
- William Harrod, Research Division Director for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program in the Department of Energy Office of Science
Harrod brings an important perspective of the U.S. government's large-scale computing funding directions. His talk, entitled, "A Journey to Exascale Computing," will focus on the strategy and plans for developing and deploying energy efficient, highly programmable exascale computers by the early 2020s.
- Henry Markram, Professor of Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (EPFL).
Markram is the founder of the Brain Mind Institute, founder and director of the Blue Brain Project, founder and coordinator of the Human Brain Project and co-founder and president of Frontiers. Entitled "Simulating the Human Brain: An Extreme Challenge for Computing," this talk will detail all aspects of brain simulations focusing on how building and simulating brain models across its spatial (nine orders of magnitude) and temporal (twelve orders of magnitude) scales will demand extreme solutions for data management, cloud-based computing, Internet-based interactivity, visualization and supercomputing.
For more information on all SC12 Invited Speakers and their talks, please see: http://sc12.supercomputing.org/content/invited-talks
Attention Exhibitors: SCinet Connection Request System (CRS) Now Open!
The SCinet CRS is the principal method that exhibitors may use to identify, request, and manage their network connection needs with SCinet, the high performance network that provides local and wide area high capacity connections for the conference. The CRS is the online management system that SCinet uses to collect requests for standard network connections (such as 10- or 1- Gigabit Ethernet) and connections to be delivered as dark fiber either to another exhibitor booth or to a SCinet location.
The SC12 Exhibits Management Company provides SCinet with a list of contacts for exhibitor organizations. These initial contacts should have received an email with a subject line of "Invitation to request SCinet connections" on August 1, 2012. That email contains login and password information for the CRS. If you do not know the contact for your exhibitor/organization, please contact the SCinet Helpdesk by sending email to support@scinet.supercomputing.org
Connection requests can be submitted at any time, but a late fee must be charged for new connection requests after September 28. The CRS will close for new connections on October 19.
Accepting requests to participate: August 1, 2012 - October 19th, 2012
PLEASE NOTE: Late fees apply after Friday, September 28
For more information: https://scinet.supercomputing.org/crs/faq/
Questions: support@scinet.supercomputing.org
Nominations are Now Open for the 2012 HPCwire Readers' Choice Awards
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2012 HPCwire Readers' Choice awards. The HPCwire Readers' Choice Awards are a way for our readers to determine, select and honor their own from the leaders, movers and shakers within the global HPC community each year.
Play a proactive role in the selection process by nominating your favorite candidates for the 2012 HPCwire Readers' Choice Awards today! Deadline to submit nominations is August 31, 2012
Submit your nominations now!
Show Your Work at SC12 Keynote and Plenary Sessions, Submissions due Oct. 19
The keynote and plenary sessions at SC12 will feature an SC-sponsored "Walk in Video Loop" which will run before and after these sessions as attendees arrive and depart. This is a unique, highly visible platform to showcase HPC projects that can be shared via video, or images. We are particularly interested in highlighting any unique scientific visualizations.
We are now accepting submissions.
- Content will be projected on a high definition surface that is 32' by 18' with a 16x9 ratio. Submissions should be at least 1920x1080 pixel resolution at 30 frames per second.
- Files should be submitted in a standard Quicktime or Windows codec format.
- Please include a separate file with your organization's logo, along with the names and photos of people involved in the project (if available).
- Participation is FREE!
- Upload files to http://submissions.supercomputing.org – using the "Walk In, Walk Out video" submission form
- Please clearly label your files with your company or institution name.
If you have any questions please email: walkinvideo@info.supercomputing.org
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