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FIRST ANNUAL
HPC (HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING) INDUSTRY RECOGNITION AWARD ANNOUNCED
SGI TO SPONSOR PRESTIGIOUS AWARD TO RECOGNIZE OUTSTANDING EFFORT IN EXPANDING
AWARENESS OF HPC INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTIONS
PORTLAND, OREGON – October 31, 2002 – SGI, (NYSE:SGI), will
sponsor the first HPC Industry Recognition Award, created to recognize
one individual whose efforts have made a significant impact in promoting
positive awareness of the many valuable scientific and technical contributions
of the HPC community.
The recipient of the
HPC Industry Recognition Award will be announced at a private VIP award
reception to be held at Morton’s of Chicago restaurant in Baltimore,
Maryland on November 18, 2002, the opening evening of the HPC industry’s
largest event, the 15th ACM/IEEE high performance computing and networking
conference, SC2002, in Baltimore, Maryland.
The HPC community
represents the leading edge of scientific and technical computing. HPC
applications have advanced our abilities and progress in countless areas
such as designing safer modes of transportation, predicting and tracking
natural disasters, combating water and air pollution, and are already
proving to be key to many aspects of national defense and homeland security.
The HPC Industry Recognition
Award, has been created to recognize one individual who has made a significant
contribution to (a) expanding HPC awareness beyond the boundaries of the
HPC community, (b) promoting HPC industry credibility, and (c) generally
being a role-model spokesperson for the HPC industry. The award was conceived
by HPC marketing veteran Michael Bernhardt, in cooperation with many senior
HPC communications professionals and academic and industry advisors prominent
in the HPC community.
"The high-performance
computing community is a thriving ecosystem that requires constant innovation
from groups as diverse as new technology start-ups, national labs and
the world's leading industrial users," said Greg Estes, vice president
of corporate marketing at SGI. "This is a timely and important award
at an exciting time for the industry, and we're proud to put our support
behind it".
"An award like
this has been a long time coming," said Mike Bernhardt, president
of The Bernhardt Agency and a member of the SCxy Industry Advisory Committee,
who had the original idea for the HPC Industry Recognition Award. "With
economic uncertainty clouding the important contributions of scientific
and technical computing advancements, it’s the flag-bearers of this
industry that really stand out. This award will finally give recognition
to those dedicated individuals who take a leading role in helping this
industry thrive by keeping the benefits of so many HPC contributions visible
to the broader public. And, it only makes sense to present this award
on the eve of SC2002."
SC2002 is the fifteenth
consecutive conference to focus on high performance computing and networking,
and formerly referred to as the supercomputing conference series. Unlike
many of the high-tech conferences that have suffered dearly over the past
year with declining attendance and sponsorship, The SCxy conferences have
consistently attracted an impressive number of high-profile attendees.
Even last year, when many conference organizers were forced to cancel
major events in the technology sector, the SCxy conference saw a decline
of less than 200 attendees.
According to Karen
Green, SC2002 public relations chair and public information officer at
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, "The Scxy Conferences average about 2,000 technical
program participants a year and about 5,500 total attendees."
"That is nothing
short of amazing – especially with today’s economy," said
Bernhardt. "We believe SC2002’s attendance could set a new record
– advance registration for this conference is stronger than in any
previous year."
SC2002’s keynote
speaker will be Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation.
Ms. Colwell will deliver the keynote address on the changing role of computing
in our society.
More information on
SC2002 can be found at.
More information on SGI can be found at http://www.sgi.com.
