Courses and Workshops CSCS Università della Svizzera Italiana

CSCS/USI Summer School 2020 on HPC and Data Analytics

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre and Università della Svizzera italiana are pleased to announce that the annual Summer School will be held from July 13 to July 24, 2020 at the Steger Center in Riva San Vitale, located in the Italian speaking area of Switzerland.

Content

This summer school will focus on the effective exploitation of state-of-the-art hybrid High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems with a special focus on Data Analytics. The content of the course is tailored for intermediate graduate students (3rd year Bachelor’s students, Master’s students, Ph.D students, and early stage Postdocs) interested in both learning parallel programming models, and having hands-on experience using HPC systems. Starting from an introductory explanation of the available systems at CSCS, the course will progress to more applied topics such as parallel programming on accelerators, code optimization, scientific libraries, and deep learning software frameworks.

The following topics will be covered:

•    GPU architectures
•    GPU programming (CUDA and OpenACC)
•    Performance optimization and scientific libraries
•    Interactive supercomputing (JupyterLab)
•    Python HPC libraries (Numpy/SciPy/Dask/Numba/CuPy)
•    Introduction to Machine Learning and GPU optimized frameworks (Rapids)
•    Deep Learning on HPC platforms (TensorFlow)

Extensive practical and exercise lab sessions will help to clarify and consolidate the theoretical material.

Students will be able to earn six ECTS credit points for this course from Università della Svizzera italiana (subject to exam): https://search.usi.ch/en/courses/35260874/effective-high-performance-computing-data-analytics-summer-school

Lectures will be held by ETH Zurich / CSCS, USI, and a partner organization from the industry.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The target audience is intermediate graduate students, which includes 3rd year Bachelor’s students, Master’s students, Ph.D students, and early stage Postdocs.

REQUIREMENTS

Applicants have to meet the following requirements:

  • Good knowledge of C/C++ and basic knowledge of Python
  • Basic understanding of MPI
  • Familiarity with the UNIX/Linux OS and the basic programming environment tools (terminals, editors, compilers)
  • Require HPC skills for their work or research

Only applicants who satisfy all requirements will be considered. Participants will need to bring their own laptop for practical sessions.

If you wish to help us publicize the Summer School program you can download the flyer here.

APPLICATION PROCESS

If you meet all requirements, kindly download the application form, fill it in and send it to summerschool2020@cscs.ch no later than Sunday, April 19, 2020.

A maximum number of thirty applicants will be selected to participate in the Summer School. You will be notified about acceptance or rejection of your application by Friday, June 5, 2020.

Those candidates whose application successfully passes the selection process will receive further information regarding registration.

PARTICIPATION FEE

  • Accommodation in dormitory and full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee breaks during the week; breakfast during the weekend): CHF 900

Accommodation throughout the duration of the course (eleven nights from Monday, July 13 through Friday, July 24, 2019) in rooms of 2 to 3 people divided by gender with common showers, bathrooms and laundry room.

  • Meals-only (lunch, dinner, coffee breaks during the week): CHF 500

Fees include:

  • Seven full-day and three half-day intensive courses based on theoretical and practical coaching in a group of maximum 30 participants
  • Learning materials introduced by instructors
  • A visit of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS)
  • An excursion in the area
  • A final test with the possibility to earn six ECT credit points from Università della Svizzera italiana (if successfully passed)

HEALTH INSURANCE

Please note that students selected to attend the program will need to hold a health insurance that could cover potential unanticipated medical treatment during their stay in Switzerland.

  • Students coming from EU* or EFTA* countries will be asked to provide a copy of one of the following documents: European Health Insurance Card, or Provisional Replacement Certificate for the European Health Insurance Card

* EU Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. EFTA: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway.

  • Students coming from other countries will be asked to provide: a letter from their insurance company and a copy of their insurance card confirming international coverage of at least CHF 40’000 for each of the following items:
    • emerging medical expenses
    • emerging hospital treatment
    • repatriation for medical reasons and mortal remains

If a student should not have an insurance, or their insurance company cannot provide such specific letter, they must purchase insurance for the entire duration of their stay and provide proof of purchase.

CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) ADVISORY

We would like to inform participants that we are closely monitoring the Coronavirus developments in Switzerland and around the world. We hope that the situation will be resolved by the beginning of the summer and preparations for the school program continue based on this assumption. In case in the following weeks the circumstances appear to compromise the hosting of the event, we will inform all participants and update this page accordingly. The safety of the Summer School students, instructors and organizers is our top priority, and a decision on the possibility to host the event in July 2020 will be taken based on this key principle. The CSCS-USI Summer School Organizing Committee will communicate the final decision in May 2020. Should the event be cancelled, all the registration fees will be refunded.

INQUIRIES

Inquiries may be addressed to summerschool2020@cscs.ch.

The summer school is supported by:

  • The Swiss Graduate School FOMICS – “Foundations in Mathematics and Informatics for Computer Simulations in Science and Engineering”, which is located at the Institute of Computational Science (www.ics.usi.ch) at USI in Lugano, Switzerland.
  • The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (www.cscs.ch) in Lugano, Switzerland

Read more: https://www.cscs.ch/events/upcoming-events/event-detail/cscs-usi-summer-school-2020/