March 23, 2018 — The Council of the European Union will host “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future: HPC for Extreme Scale Scientific and Industrial Applications” on April 19, 2018 at the National Palace of Culture, Sofia, Bulgaria.

This event aims to raise awareness on the role of High Performance Computing (HPC) in transforming Europe’s digital future by providing solutions to a wide range of societal, scientific, and industrial challenges. Specific targets include the role of HPC in personalised medicine and in understanding the human brain and the link of HPC with other emerging computing paradigms, such as quantum computing.

The event will also address how the proposal of the European Commission on theEuroHPC Joint Undertaking will impact the European scientific, economic and societal developments -including digital skills, focusing on the wider area of South and Eastern Europe.

Bulgarian high-level government representative, together with Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, and Thierry Breton, CEO Atos will open this one-day event that will gather more than 250 scientists and industrialists as well as representatives of ministries from the South and Eastern Europe.

Participants and registration

EARLY REGISTRATION is encouraged. A list with hotels providing special prices will be send by the organisers following the registration.

Registration is open, free of charge and mandatory. It will close on 9 April 2018.

Website

On the website of the National Center for Supercomputer Applications scc.acad.bg you will find:

• The Official notification from the Commission
• The program of the event
• Forms for registration. Registration is required

Agenda

• Opening
  by Bulgarian high-level government representative, together with Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, and Prof. Ivan Dimov, Deputy Minister for Education and Science
• HPC for extreme scale scientific applications 
  Moderators: Prof. Stoyan Markov, NCSA, Bulgaria and Prof. Thomas Lippert, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Germany 
  The session aims at providing  examples of ground-breaking results that have been achieved by using supercomputers in various areas of scientific and industrial activity, including medicine, biology, geology, engineering and social sciences.
  Talks: Prof. Stoyan Markov and Thomas Lippert, Prof. Constantia Alexandrou (University of Cyprus and The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus), Prof. Joseph Kioseoglou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
• HPC and Future Computing Paradigms – Panel discussion
  Moderator: Prof. Thomas Lippert, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Germany 
  The session aims at discussing emerging computing strategies in the next five to ten years such as exascale computing, quantum computing, neuromorphic computing; to discuss their possible competition and/or complementarities and synergies; and their concrete application perspectives and impact on science and economy; and to draw conclusions about the possible future emerging computing infrastructure landscape to build in Europe and beyond.
  Panellists: Prof. Heike Riel (IBM Research Frontiers Institute, Switzerland), Prof. Harry Buhrman (CWI, University of Amsterdam, QuSoft, The Netherlands), Prof. Kristel Michielsen (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany), Prof. Ilian Todorov (Science & Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom), Dr. Jean-Marc Denis (ATOS-BULL, France)
• The growing role of HPC in Neuroscience – the Human Brain Project FET Flagship
  Moderator: Prof. Katrin Amunts, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
  This session will show the coupling of scientific progress in brain research with advances in extreme-scale computing. Simulation and data analytics in neuroscience, but also brain medicine illustrate the successful application of HPC in this field.
  Talks: Prof. Jeannette Hellgren Kotaleski (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), Prof. Viktor Jirsa (Marseille University, France), Dr. Kristina Kapanova (NCSA, Bulgaria), Prof. Katrin Amunts (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany)
• The Future of Personalised Health and Medicine – Panel discussion
  Moderator: Prof. Emrah Düzel, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany
  The session aims at discussing the new concepts and tools needed in medicine to make full use of data generated by patient studies as well as ensuring this data is used in the most beneficial way for the individual patient.
  Panellists: Prof. Hilleke Hulshoff Pol (UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands), Prof. Kostadin Kostadinov (Advisor to the Minister of Education and Science, Bulgaria), Prof. Giulia Rossetti (RWTH Aachen University, Germany), Prof. Gitte Knudsen (Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark), Prof. Patrice Boyer (University Paris 7, France)
• Role of HPC in the South and Eastern Europe – Panel discussion
  Moderator: Dr. Thomas Skordas, Director, DG CONNECT, European Commission
  The aim of the session is to discuss concrete perspectives, challenges and collaborations of HPC development, including skills development, in Eastern and South European countries under EuroHPC, the European strategic initiative on High Performance Computing.
  Panellists: Prof. Svetozar Margenov (Director IICT – BAS, Bulgaria), Prof. Constantia Alexandrou (The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus), Dr. Vit Vondrak (VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic), Prof. Panayiotis Tsanakas (National Technical University of Athens, Greece), Prof. Zlatan Car (University of Rijeka, Croatia)
• Closing Keynote speech by Dr. Thierry Breton, CEO Atos, France
• Closing remarks by Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society

Please check the detailed agenda to have complete information on the titles of the presentations, the names of the speakers and panellists, as well as the exact timing of the sessions.

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Source: Bulgarian Presidency