By Elizabeth Leake (STEM-Trek)

Many thanks to those who donated to STEM-Trek in 2018; we appreciate your support very much.

Annual Report of Activities

It wasn’t an easy year for STEM-Trek. U.S. tax law changes affected the philanthropy behavior of many corporations who feared that it wouldn’t be as financially-favorable to donate to charity as it has been in the past. Even though the changes wouldn’t have mattered to some, we saw widespread stalling; some came through toward the end of the year, but very few. Instead of donating cash, they are now more likely to donate in-kind services, and/or host internship programs. Most want to see a tangible return-on-investment. Since the tone at the top impacts US corporate culture, fewer are concerned with diversity and inclusion. It was also a slow year for federal grants; they were taking up to 10 months to disburse once approved. Since STEM-Trek doesn’t …

Elizabeth Leake (STEM-Trek) recently asked SC18 travel grant awardees (traveling to Dallas, Texas Nov. 9-16), “Shall we call our AirBnB South Fork or Ubuntu House?”

All she heard were crickets.

“Remember? J.R. Ewing was the lead character in the 1980’s teledrama, and South Fork was the name of his ranch.”

Again. Silence…

She began to realize this cohort was either too young to have known about the television series, Dallas, or grew up in places where it was never a ‘thing.’  They should consider themselves lucky to have avoided a decade of show-inspired “Texas Helmet Head” and massive shoulder pads. Seriously; we looked like linebackers!

So, Ubuntu House it is!

From Wikipedia: Ubuntu (Zulu pronunciation: [ùɓúntʼù])[1][2] is a Nguni Bantu term meaning “humanity.” It is often translated as …

In this blog, Marcus Bond, an XSEDE Campus Champion and professor of inorganic chemistry and x-ray crystallography at Southeast Missouri State University, shares his experience at the International Supercomputing Conference, ISC High Performance. Bond’s first ISC blog post was featured in HPCwire on June 26, 2018. All photos by Bond.

ISC Tutorial Day: Sunday

Knowledge. As a relative newcomer to the field of high performance computing (HPC), this is primarily why I attend. The last few years have been a flurry of HPC conferences, workshops, and Linux Cluster Institutes as I try to educate myself and become more conversant about supercomputing. Repetition is helpful, since it is easy to forget from one conference to …

By Elizabeth Leake, STEM-Trek Nonprofit

The 11th South African Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) Annual National Conference convened Dec. 3-7, 2017 at the Velmore Estate Hotel south of Pretoria.

CHPC, the South African Research and Education Network (SANReN) and the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA) showcased a broad range of resources and human capital development programs that supported the conference theme, “HPC Convergence with Novel Application Models for Better Service to Research and Industry.”

The event was officially opened by Phil Mjwara, Director General of the South African National Department of Science and Technology and Hina Patel, Executive Director of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Meraka Institute. The CHPC National Conference was called to order by CHPC Director, Happy Sithole.

More than 450, including 132 students (72 competitors and 60 posters), registered for the five-day event which included two full days of …