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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.

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