Scientific computing team meetup

About the event

This meetup is targeted towards people in local Scientific Computing (SciComp)/Research computing/Research Software Engineer support teams, for example university local HPC teams. We work in local capacity and are often overshadowed by the big national e-infrastructure providers (CSC, EuroHPC, etc) in attention and funding, yet we are the ones “on the ground” with the researchers. What’s our place in the world?

We have our own unique challenges and opportunities. This is a time we can talk together and learn from each other. (Others are of course welcome.) Maybe we can make a strategy for working together or getting some national funding?

Who should join?

For example, many of the teams that were part of the old Finnish Grid Infrastructure at univerities or local partners of the CodeRefinery collaboration. Really, if you work with Aalto Scientific Computing you are strongly invited and we’ll have some fun discussions. If you don’t, you are invited anyway.

Academic conferences usually don’t suit us, but we need a community. Our job is important and challenging, and we can’t do it alone. NoBSC is the right level for the networking we need to succeed at our jobs.

In this first iteration, we especially welcome people who support academic research through computing and data expertise in universities and research institutions, for example those in local HPC or RSE teams, cloud computing, and other computing services for researchers. But everyone is welcome: including those who might want these kind of jobs in the future.

Program ideas

We can especially talk about:

  • Local resources and teams in a time when computing is becoming more centralized.

  • Local services we run, how they compare to national services.

  • Advantages and disadvantages of being positioned locally.

  • What types of infrastructure funding we could apply for to increase our benefit or make (inter-)national collaborations. (Dedicated session: Wednesday afternoon)

Cool things and problems

Everyone will have a chance to (and be encouraged) to contribute to the session “Cool things and problems”. In this, each team presents three cool things they are doing, and three problems they are facing. We can then see.

Good to know

There is no registration fee, but also no food, snacks, coffe, and dinner provided for this part of the event. We will have to divide into smaller groups for lunch and dinners and distribute to various restaurants.

Organizers

Richard Darst (richard.darst atsign aalto.fi) is organizing this half.