Scientific Calendar Event



Description An ICTP meeting in person in Stellenbosch - South Africa

The joint ICTP, NITheCS and CHPC School has the goal of providing early career scientists with technical guidance and best practices on advanced computing tools, fundamental for modern quantitative sciences. The program includes a mix of lectures and practicals, focusing on a wide range of topics from HPC, to ML/AI and QC.
 
School participants will learn best practices commonly applied in modern computational research to extend scientific frontiers in fields of direct impact for sustainable development, both through the analysis of large, rich datasets and through the simulations of physical processes. Lectures on selected research topics will showcase major technical issues across several scientific fields, from Astrophysics to Biophysics and Climate Sciences.

A series of tutorials will complete the program, providing participants with hands-on experience on an extended set of practical aspects:
 
  • Scaling 3D computational codes on a large scale facility for HPC
  • I/O and Visualization
  • GPGPU
  • HPC for ML
  • Deep Learning
  • Applied QC

The ideal candidate is an early career scientist either with short term perspectives to work or currently working (ref. letter from project PI is recommended), on a research project strongly tied to computer simulations and/or large scale data analysis. He/She has successfully attended previous courses on foundations of HPC and advanced programming (i.e., CHPC winter school) or demonstrate extended previous experience in scientific computing.

The first day of the school includes a series of public talks from leading scientists in their related field of computational science (for more information see the link). For a restricted number of selected participants the week-event will be a unique opportunity to interact with scientists, as well as share and discuss computationally related problems with peers and technical experts with years of experience on applied high-end computing for scientific research.     

Speakers:
S. ABBA OMAR, ICTP, Italy
O. AKIN-OJO, ICTP EAIFR, Rwanda
A. BALLON, Xanadu, Canada
M.-J. BOPAPE, National Research Foundation - South African Environmental Observation Network, South Africa
C. CROSBY, CHPC, South Africa
A. DABHOLKAR, ICTP, Italy
S. DI GIOIA, ICTP, Italy
A. DI PIERRO, Università di Verona, Italy
G. FONSECA, Intel Corporation, Germany
I. GIROTTO, ICTP, Italy
K. GOVENDER, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
J. GREEFF, North West University, South Africa
D. HUPPENKOTHEN, SRON, Netherlands
W. JANSE VAN RENSBURG Werner, CHPC, South Africa
S. KASONGO, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
A. MAHOMED ABBAS, UKZN, South Africa
S. MCFARTHING, Qunova Computing, South Africa
M. NASILA, First National Bank, South Africa
A. PELLOW-JARMAN, Qunova Computing, South Africa
F. PETRUCCIONE Francesco, NITheCS & Stellenbosch University, South Africa
A. SCAIFE, University of Manchester, UK
H. SITHOLE, NICIS, South Africa
B. WATSON, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Grants: A limited number of grants are available to support the attendance of selected participants, with priority given to participants from developing countries. There is no registration fee.

Go to day
  • Monday, 17 April 2023
    • 13:00 - 14:00
      • 13:00 Arrival of guests - Finger lunch 1h0' ( VENUE: NEELSIE CINEMA, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY )
        The time zone is Stellenbosch, South Africa. You can choose your time zone Africa/Johannesburg (in place of Europe/Rome) on the top right of the page and the programme time will be modified accordingly.
    • 14:00 - 18:45
      • 14:00 Opening 30'
        Speaker: Imraan PATEL (Deputy Director General: Socio-economic Innovation Partnerships), Francesco PETRUCCIONE (Interim Director, NITheCS), Atish DABHOLKAR (Director General, ICTP), Happy SITHOLE (Centre Manager, NICIS)
      • 14:30 How Data-intensive Science can Drive Human Capital Development for the Fourth Industrial Revolution 30'
        online
        Speaker: Anna SCAIFE (University of Manchester, UK)
      • 15:00 High-Performance Computing is Enabling a Modernized Approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) 30'
        Speaker: Mark NASILA (First National Bank)
      • 15:30 Progress in the Development of Environmental Observation Networks, and Numerical Weather and Climate Models in South Africa 30'
        Speaker: Mary-Jane BOPAPE (Director, National Research Foundation - South African Environmental Observation Network)
      • 16:00 Break 30'
      • 16:30 High Performance Computing in an African Collaborative Research in Atomistic/Molecular Modeling 30'
        online
        Speaker: Omololu AKIN-OJO (ICTP - EAIFR, Rwanda)
      • 17:00 Brain-inspired energy efficient solution to hard optimization problems 30'
        online
        Speaker: Gabriel FONSECA GUERRA (Intel)
        Material: Abstract Slides
      • 17:30 The Future of Computing – From Bits to Qubits 30'
        Speaker: Heike RIEL (IBM)
      • 18:00 Making your software correct 30'
        Speaker: Bruce WATSON (Stellenbosch University)
      • 18:30 Closing: Stellenbosch University's clusters of excellence and the Research and Innovation Blueprint 2030 15'
        Speaker: Sibusiso MOYO (Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies - Stellenbosch University)
    • 18:45 - 20:15
      • 18:45 Reception 1h30'
  • Tuesday, 18 April 2023
    • 09:30 - 13:15
       Adam Small Theatre Complex
      15 Victoria St, Stellenbosch Central, Stellenbosch, 7600
      Stellenbosch University
      
      • 09:30 Lecture: ML for Astrophysics: An (Incomplete) Overview 45'
        online
        Speaker: Daniela HUPPENKOTHEN (SRON, Netherlands)
        Material: Abstract
      • 10:15 Break 15'
      • 10:30 Lecture: High Performance Computing and Machine Learning 30'
        Speaker: Sydney KASONGO (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
        Material: Abstract
      • 11:00 Setting of accounts on CHPC Lengau cluster 2h15'
        Speaker: Ivan GIROTTO (ICTP, Italy), Serafina DI GIOIA (ICTP, Trieste)
    • 14:30 - 17:15
      • 14:30 Lecture: “Therapy by chatbot? The promise and challenges in using AI for Mental Health” 45'
        online
        Speaker: Japie GREEFF (North West University, South Africa)
        Material: Abstract Slides
      • 15:15 Break 15'
      • 15:30 Tutorial: Accelerated ML on the cloud (DL on Google TPU) 1h45'
        Speaker: Serafina DI GIOIA (SISSA, Italy)
        Material: Link
  • Wednesday, 19 April 2023
    • 09:30 - 13:15
       Adam Small Theatre Complex
      • 09:30 Lecture: RegCM & Clima Modeling 45'
        Speaker: Sabina ABBA OMAR (ICTP, Italy)
        Material: Abstract
      • 10:15 Break 15'
      • 10:30 Tutorial: Computer architectures and foundations of large scale 3D simulations 1h0'
        Speaker: Ivan GIROTTO (ICTP, Italy)
        Material: Link
      • 11:30 Lecture: Highly optimized large scale simulations of multi-component fluids via Lattice Boltzmann based modeling 1h45'
        Speaker: Ivan GIROTTO (ICTP, Italy)
    • 14:30 - 16:45
      • 14:30 Tutorial: Libraries for Parallel ML ( Intro to Dask, setting of conda environment, Parallel I/O, Parallel training) 2h15'
        Speaker: Serafina DI GIOIA (ICTP, Italy)
        Material: Link
  • Thursday, 20 April 2023
    • 09:30 - 12:45
       Adam Small Theatre Complex
      • 09:30 Lecture: CHPC applications/Clima/Comp Mech 45'
        Speaker: Charles CROSBY (CHPC, South Africa)
        Material: Slides
      • 10:15 Break 15'
      • 10:30 Tutorial: Formatted // IO & Viz 2h15'
        Speaker: Charles CROSBY (CHPC, South Africa)
    • 14:30 - 17:45
      • 14:30 Lecture: MD/E-structure 45'
        Speaker: Krishna GOVENDER (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)
        Material: Slides
      • 15:15 Break 15'
      • 15:30 Tutorial: MD on GPU archietctures/Porting Application on modern GPUs 2h15'
        Speaker: Krishna GOVENDER (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)
        Material: Link
  • Friday, 21 April 2023
    • 09:30 - 13:00
       Adam Small Theatre Complex
      • 09:30 Lecture: Compiler design for quantum hardware 1h30'
        online
        Speaker: Alessandra DI PIERRO (Università di Verona, Italy)
        Material: Slides
      • 11:00 Break 30'
      • 11:30 Tutorial: Optimizing quantum models at scale 1h30'
        Speaker: Amira MAHOMED ABBAS (UKZN, South Africa)
        Material: Slides
    • 14:30 - 18:00
      • 14:30 Lecture: Introduction to Pennylane 1h30'
        online
        Speaker: Alvaro BALLON (Xanadu, Canada)
        Material: Slides
      • 16:00 Break 30'
      • 16:30 Tutorial: Introduction to Julia for quantum computing 1h30'
        Speaker: Aidan PELLOW-JARMAN (Qunova Computing, South Africa), Sean MCFARTHING (Qunova Computing, South Africa)
        Material: Link Slides