Student cluster build competition
Application deadline extended to Thursday 7 June 2012.
The CHPC announces the opening of its search for the best computer science and engineering undergraduate students to participate in the CHPC Cluster Build Competition. The national competition takes place in December 2012 in Durban. The winning team will go on to represent South Africa at the International Supercomputing student competition in Germany in 2013.
The CHPC invites applications from suitably qualified candidates to attend the HPC Winter School and enter the competition. Its purpose is to introduce South African students to fundamental knowledge of high performance computing techniques and select regional teams for the CHPC’s Student Cluster Competition in December 2012.
The competition and training is only open to South African students enrolled in a computer science related degree who are in 2nd year if enrolled in a 3 year degree, or 2nd/3rd year if enrolled in a 4 year degree.
The course will cover the concepts and theory of parallel computers, and programming for parallel systems with MPI, OpenMP and CUDA, using the C, Fortran or python programming languages.
The HPC School will run from Monday 2 July to Saturday 7 July at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein. Cluster competition entrants will then participate immediately at the end of the school on Sunday 8 July in an evaluation and selection process for the December competition.
Please note that not all attendees of the HPC School will compete in the CHPC Student Cluster Competition in December, however, if you attend the HPC School you must be available to participate in the competition.
In the CHPC Student Cluster Competition participants will build small HPC clusters out of hardware provided by the CHPC. The contest will take place on the exhibition floor at the CHPC National Meeting in Durban, 3–7 December 2012. The participants will be given a selection of applications to optimise and run on their clusters to demonstrate the design’s performance. The winning team will be sent to Germany in June 2013 to represent the country at the ISC Student Cluster Competition.
There are no fees for successful applicants. The CHPC will cover the costs of accommodation during all events as well as air travel and conference fees.
Applicants must meet the following criteria:
Hold South African Citizenship
Not hold any undergraduate degree
If enrolled in a 3 year degree be in 2nd year
If enrolled in a 4 year degree be in 2nd or 3rd year
Be in good academic standing
Be available for the CHPC Student Cluster Competition from 3rd to 7th December
Be available to attend ISC in late June 2013
Correctly complete the application form
Should you wish to participate kindly complete the registration form below, obtain a letter of support from an academic staff member of your faculty and attach your academic transcript.
No prior background in HPC will be assumed. Interactive lectures and computer tutorials will attempt to introduce the students to a range of key aspects of HPC and further illustrate how these tools are currently being applied to address research problems.
Transport, accommodation, and full board will be provided. Owing to budgetary constraints, only limited places are available for suitably qualified students.
CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 18h00 Thursday 7 June 2012
Should you wish to become one of the participants, please complete the following application form and email the document back to competition@chpc.ac.za before the closing date. Successful candidates will be notified by Monday 11 June 2012.
Download the full application form in MS Word format.
The CHPC calls for all talented students to submit their applications. As a public funded institution, the CHPC supports the transformation of South Africa and thus the organisers highly encourage students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds to submit their applications. For general enquiries please email: competition@chpc.ac.za.