ENGINEERING

A 'Special Topic' addressing critical workforce issues in high performance computing (HPC) will be featured at SC10, the premier international conference on high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, to be held in New Orleans, La., from Nov. 13-19.

The rapid growth of high performance computing (HPC) in industry and research is increasing the demand for expertise in HPC. This trend, coupled with declining enrollments in computing education, is creating a HPC workforce shortage affecting government, industry, and academia. To meet critical workforce needs, more skilled practitioners and researchers need to be trained.

"These workforce challenges affect all of us in the HPC community and we need to address them now to sustain the growth of HPC," said Jennifer Teig von Hoffman, SC10 Communities chair. "With representatives from industry, government and academia in attendance, SC10 is the best forum to harness the innovative thinking that has made the HPC community so dynamic and focus it on developing solutions to these workforce issues. "

The goal of the Special Topic is to bring together HPC representatives from industry, research institutions, national labs and academia to assess workforce needs and explore innovative education and training approaches and identify trends affecting the HPC workforce over the coming decade with a focus on:

• Identifying and exploring specific skills and capabilities needed in the HPC workforce.
• Descriptions of existing and new approaches to increase the skilled workforce.
• Discussion of the trends and forces shaping HPC workforce needs.
• New education and training approaches over the next 5 and 10 years.

SC10 is soliciting papers and proposals for panels on high performance computing and cyber infrastructure workforce development. Papers should be 5 to 10 pages in length and follow IEEE Transactions format. Panel proposals should include the following: a 150-word, single page abstract of the panel; a position statement; a description of the target audience; and a list of proposed panelists. Workforce topics of interest fall into three principal areas:

Challenges: Curriculum development for HPC and cyber infrastructure; proficiencies and skills needed in the workforce to meet the high performance computing needs of industry, academia, and government laboratories; impact of limited workforce on the adoption and use of HPC in industry, academia, and government; global needs for skilled practitioners in HPC and cyber infrastructure; effects of growth of multi-core computing systems on workforce development needs; industry specific and cross-sector workforce development needs; and broadening participation.

Solutions: Course and curriculum development in academia, government, and industry; approaches to providing training and education to increase the skilled workforce in HPC and cyber infrastructure; online and face-to-face educational approaches; data and computation -- preparing practitioners to manage the data deluge; and efforts to broaden participation within underrepresented communities.

Building for the future: Workforce needs for the next 5 to 10 years; strategic directions and goals for HPC workforce development, education, and curriculum over the next decade; new and emerging approaches for the delivery of education and training to increase the workforce; emerging technology trends and forces (such as GPUs and multicore computing) the HPC community will need to consider in curriculum development, education, and training.

Each submission will be reviewed by the program committee, and final decisions will be based on reviews and levels of recommendation.

Paper and Panel submissions are due no later than July 22 and may be made at http://submissions.supercomputing.org. Notification of acceptance will be made by Aug. 15. For more information, email education@info.supercomputing.org.