URISC@SC17 and a Tale of Four Unicorns

By Elizabeth Leake, STEM-Trek Nonprofit

September 8, 2017

This will be STEM-Trek’s third year to support a workshop during the annual supercomputing conference, or SC. This year’s program is titled “Understanding Risk in Shared Cyberecosystems,” or URISC@SC17. We’re collaborating with Von Welch who leads the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure at Indiana University, and specialists from the South African Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC).

We acknowledge that universities struggle to provide professional staff with conference-related travel and advanced training opportunities. Therefore, early-career professionals who work as campus technology facilitators or sysadmins at regional-serving public universities in the U.S. and Africa are invited to apply for travel support by Sept. 11, 2017.

Our SC co-located workshops have had NSF and private support. This year we are thankful that Google is helping, but we’re still fundraising to bridge gaps—flight costs are likely to increase due to petro industry damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, and we would love to support a larger cohort. Anyone interested in helping may contact [email protected].

As for return on investment, some prospective donors might think this demographic represents weak sales potential. Few are in the market for new systems or services since they operate on a shoestring; some support hardware that’s ten or more years old with no replacement in sight. What keeps them up at night? Most say it’s a challenge to keep older hardware running, they can’t afford or take time off to train, they don’t have enough time for outreach and education, and everyone struggles with cybersecurity.

What prospective donors may not realize is that the demographic we support represents industry growth in important and often new directions. This might be more difficult to understand for those who haven’t worked with this community as long as we have (I have 13 years of experience with campus tech/10 years global HPC external relations/5 years with African projects). Some are building new centers from scratch, and local advocacy often rises to meet unique regional industry needs. Once trained, many relocate to find better-paying jobs with academic, government or commercial facilities that appreciate their resourcefulness and creativity. I call them “unicorn-generalists” who are likely to become lead decision-makers in the $44 billion HPC industry.1

I can think of many unicorn-generalist examples, but I’ll share four today.

Nick Thorne (standing) was the lead trainer at the CHPC in Cape Town, and now works as a research engineer with the Large Scale HPC Group at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

When I met Thorne in 2012, he was laser-focused on building CHPC Director Happy Sithole’s vision. Dr. Sithole understands the importance of student development and international outreach better than anyone I know. Thorne contributed substantially to the CHPC Advanced Computer Engineering Lab’s effort to establish a student cluster competition for South African universities to compete in. This project, aimed at SA human capital development, allowed a winning team to represent SA at the annual International Supercomputing Conference Student Cluster Competition in Germany. SA has placed first or second at ISC since they began to compete in 2014. Thorne also supported the Southern African Development Community (SADC) CHPC Ecosystems project (map, below) that began with donated decommissioned hardware (part of TACC’s Ranger system, and another donated by University of Cambridge). He supervised the refurbishing, distribution and cluster installation at five national and three international sites; the five in SA support student cluster teams and light research. Thorne possesses the rare combination of interpersonal, diplomatic and technical aptitude which makes him a good director candidate. It wouldn’t surprise me if someday Thorne becomes the TACC director (give him another 15-20 years—he’s young, and so is TACC Director Dan Stanzione).

When I first met Chungu Ngolwe (tallest, center back row), he worked as a systems engineer for ZAMREN, Zambia’s national research and education network. As project leader for the setup of Eduroam for the Zambian Federation, he facilitated workshops on campus network design, routing, switching and Eduroam before assuming the role as ZAMREN’s HPC sysadmin.

Ngolwe attended several workshops that STEM-Trek and CHPC supported between 2012 and 2016, and I have always been impressed with his motivation and enthusiasm. Following a brief interview in 2016, I suggested he might consider specializing in cybersecurity (that epiphany had to do with questions he asked, and his personal interests). With a small child at home, I knew night classes would be inconvenient, so I shared a link to the collection of free or low-cost online instructional materials listed on our web site—training he could pursue in his spare time. My hunch must have been correct. I recently learned that Ngolwe left ZAMREN and now supports cybersecurity for Copperbelt Energy Corporation, one of the largest energy providers on the African continent.

As a high school junior who grew up in South African townships, Zama Mtshali stood at a crossroads. Her grades were excellent, so she knew she would be college-bound. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what to study. With a University of Cape Town prospectus in hand, she searched for academic tracks that would provide her with employable skills. It was her goal to support herself and her family in the future. One sister is a soap opera actress, and her brothers have professional jobs, but none work in STEM fields. No one influenced Mtshali to pursue computer science, but she read where mathematical aptitude was helpful—and she loved math! This was the decision-tree that ultimately led Mtshali to her current role as a sysadmin for the largest HPC system for open research on the African continent, Lengau (which means “Cheetah” in the Tswana language; the fastest animal in the world).

Mtshali has great role models since many women hold leadership positions in South African government science and technology divisions (and throughout the SADC region). She also has encouragement and support from CHPC Director Happy Sithole, and the respect of fellow CHPC sysadmins. STEM-Trek is committed to increasing workforce diversity, but we’re often disappointed by the small number of women who apply for travel support to attend HPC workshops; they are the rarest unicorns! When it becomes normalized for women everywhere to sit in the HPC “bullpen,” we expect more will follow Mtshali’s footsteps.

Scott Yockel (Interim Director of Research Computing, Harvard University) is one of many U.S. success stories. We invited Yockel to talk about Harvard’s new green data center at the HPC on Common Ground @SC16 workshop (OCG).

While STEM-Trek can’t take credit for Yockel’s career trajectory, his path has not been unlike many who participate in our workshops. He grew up in Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma Baptist University where he earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry before completing his graduate degree at the University of North Texas. As a computational chemist, he returned to UNT to manage their HPC facility before accepting a position at Harvard.

Even though Texas isn’t an EPSCoR state (NSF’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), and UNT benefits from urban cultural and employment opportunities found in nearby Dallas, as an undergrad his HPC career was influenced by training programs offered by EPSCoR XSEDE partners in Oklahoma (NSF Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment). He could therefore relate to OCG participants, and recognizes that they’re also driven, resourceful, creative, and mobile. They must be all of these things in order to succeed, and many do!

To learn more about STEM-Trek and to follow URISC@SC17, please visit our website.

1 EnterpriseTech report, June 21, 2017, “Intersect 360 at ISC: HPC Industry at $44 billion by 2021,”accessed Sept. 6, 2017

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Bill Gropp on ‘Different Approaches to AI’

November 6, 2024

Around this same time last year, I expounded on what the “Future of AI” may entail. A lot has happened in the 12 months since then, including new approaches, new trends and, yes, new complications. A lot of the ne Read more…

Google Cloud Sporting a New Look in HPC and AI Hardware

November 5, 2024

It's raining hardware at Google Cloud, with the company making major upgrades in advance of bringing Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs into its fold next year. The upgrades announced in late October include a preview of its new Read more…

Go (Mountain) West, Quantum Workers! CU, CUbit, and Elevate Quantum Issue Workforce Roadmap

November 5, 2024

Last week the University of Colorado (Boulder), the CUbit Quantum Initiative, and the Elevate Quantum consortium released workforce roadmap for educating and building a quantum workforce. “This roadmap provides a foun Read more…

Collaboration Speeds Complex Chemical Modeling

November 4, 2024

A recent collaboration among researchers from HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary and the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), along with industry collaborators SandboxAQ Read more…

High-Performance Storage for AI and Analytics Panel

October 31, 2024

When storage is mentioned in an AI or Big Data analytics context, it is assumed to be a high-performance system. In practice, it may not be, and the user eventually learns about scaleable storage as the amounts of data g Read more…

Microsoft Azure & AMD Solution Channel

Join Microsoft Azure and AMD at SC24

Atlanta, Georgia is the place to be this fall as the high-performance computing (HPC) community convenes for Supercomputing 2024. SC24 will bring together an unparalleled mix of scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, programmers, and developers for a week of learning and sharing. Read more…

White House Mulls Expanding AI Chip Export Bans Beyond China

October 31, 2024

The Biden administration is reportedly considering capping sales of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips from US-based manufacturers like AMD and Nvidia to certain countries, including those in the Middle East. � Read more…

Bill Gropp on ‘Different Approaches to AI’

November 6, 2024

Around this same time last year, I expounded on what the “Future of AI” may entail. A lot has happened in the 12 months since then, including new approaches Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Cloud Sporting a New Look in HPC and AI Hardware

November 5, 2024

It's raining hardware at Google Cloud, with the company making major upgrades in advance of bringing Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs into its fold next year. The upg Read more…

Go (Mountain) West, Quantum Workers! CU, CUbit, and Elevate Quantum Issue Workforce Roadmap

November 5, 2024

Last week the University of Colorado (Boulder), the CUbit Quantum Initiative, and the Elevate Quantum consortium released workforce roadmap for educating and bu Read more…

Collaboration Speeds Complex Chemical Modeling

November 4, 2024

A recent collaboration among researchers from HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary and the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National La Read more…

High-Performance Storage for AI and Analytics Panel

October 31, 2024

When storage is mentioned in an AI or Big Data analytics context, it is assumed to be a high-performance system. In practice, it may not be, and the user eventu Read more…

Shutterstock_556401859

Role Reversal: Google Teases Nvidia’s Blackwell as It Softens TPU Rivalry

October 30, 2024

Customers now have access to Google's homegrown hardware -- its Axion CPU and latest Trillium TPU -- in its Cloud service.  At the same time, Google gave custo Read more…

AI Has a Data Problem, Appen Report Says

October 30, 2024

AI may be a priority at American companies, but the difficulty in managing data and obtaining high quality data to train AI models is becoming a bigger hurdle t Read more…

Report from HALO Details Issues Facing HPC-AI Industry

October 28, 2024

Intersect360 Research has released a comprehensive new report concerning the challenges facing the combined fields of high-performance computing (HPC) and artif Read more…

Shutterstock_2176157037

Intel’s Falcon Shores Future Looks Bleak as It Concedes AI Training to GPU Rivals

September 17, 2024

Intel's Falcon Shores future looks bleak as it concedes AI training to GPU rivals On Monday, Intel sent a letter to employees detailing its comeback plan after Read more…

Granite Rapids HPC Benchmarks: I’m Thinking Intel Is Back (Updated)

September 25, 2024

Waiting is the hardest part. In the fall of 2023, HPCwire wrote about the new diverging Xeon processor strategy from Intel. Instead of a on-size-fits all approa Read more…

Ansys Fluent® Adds AMD Instinct™ MI200 and MI300 Acceleration to Power CFD Simulations

September 23, 2024

Ansys Fluent® is well-known in the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) space and is praised for its versatility as a general-purpose solver. Its impr Read more…

xAI Colossus: The Elon Project

September 5, 2024

Elon Musk's xAI cluster, named Colossus (possibly after the 1970 movie about a massive computer that does not end well), has been brought online. Musk recently Read more…

Shutterstock 1024337068

Researchers Benchmark Nvidia’s GH200 Supercomputing Chips

September 4, 2024

Nvidia is putting its GH200 chips in European supercomputers, and researchers are getting their hands on those systems and releasing research papers with perfor Read more…

AMD Clears Up Messy GPU Roadmap, Upgrades Chips Annually

June 3, 2024

In the world of AI, there's a desperate search for an alternative to Nvidia's GPUs, and AMD is stepping up to the plate. AMD detailed its updated GPU roadmap, w Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Nvidia Shipped 3.76 Million Data-center GPUs in 2023, According to Study

June 10, 2024

Nvidia had an explosive 2023 in data-center GPU shipments, which totaled roughly 3.76 million units, according to a study conducted by semiconductor analyst fir Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

IBM Develops New Quantum Benchmarking Tool — Benchpress

September 26, 2024

Benchmarking is an important topic in quantum computing. There’s consensus it’s needed but opinions vary widely on how to go about it. Last week, IBM introd Read more…

Intel Customizing Granite Rapids Server Chips for Nvidia GPUs

September 25, 2024

Intel is now customizing its latest Xeon 6 server chips for use with Nvidia's GPUs that dominate the AI landscape. The chipmaker's new Xeon 6 chips, also called Read more…

Zapata Computing, Early Quantum-AI Software Specialist, Ceases Operations

October 14, 2024

Zapata Computing, which was founded in 2017 as a Harvard spinout specializing in quantum software and later pivoted to an AI focus, is ceasing operations, accor Read more…

Quantum and AI: Navigating the Resource Challenge

September 18, 2024

Rapid advancements in quantum computing are bringing a new era of technological possibilities. However, as quantum technology progresses, there are growing conc Read more…

US Implements Controls on Quantum Computing and other Technologies

September 27, 2024

Yesterday the Commerce Department announced export controls on quantum computing technologies as well as new controls for advanced semiconductors and additive Read more…

Google’s DataGemma Tackles AI Hallucination

September 18, 2024

The rapid evolution of large language models (LLMs) has fueled significant advancement in AI, enabling these systems to analyze text, generate summaries, sugges Read more…

Microsoft, Quantinuum Use Hybrid Workflow to Simulate Catalyst

September 13, 2024

Microsoft and Quantinuum reported the ability to create 12 logical qubits on Quantinuum's H2 trapped ion system this week and also reported using two logical qu Read more…

On Paper, AMD’s New MI355X Makes MI325X Look Pedestrian

October 15, 2024

Advanced Micro Devices has detailed two new GPUs that unambiguously reinforce it as the only legitimate GPU alternative to Nvidia. AMD shared new facts on its n Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire