Report on the RIKEN International HPC Summer School 2020 - Toward Society 5.0

From Monday, September 28 to Wednesday, September 30, 2020, the RIKEN International HPC Summer School 2020 was held online. The summer school was first held in FY 2018 as a program to interest students and young researchers in entering the field of computing and related technology, and this year’s summer school was the second time the program was held. (There was no summer school in FY 2019 due to IHPCSS being held in Kobe.) This year’s summer school had a total of 37 participants, including students (technical college students, undergraduates, and graduate students), researchers, teachers, and individuals in the private sector.

Participants learned about parallel programming and execution methods and the skills they need to master them through lectures by Deputy Director Kengo Nakajima (RIKEN), Team Leader Toshiyuki Imamura (RIKEN), Team Leader Kentaro Sano (RIKEN), and researcher Miwako Tsuji (RIKEN). Participants also had the opportunity to experience hands-on training sessions with the Oakbridge-CX Supercomputer System (The University of Tokyo) under the guidance of TAs.

Comments from the participants included, “The subjects were interesting because they related with real research topics,” “I think I was able to follow the lecture more smoothly due to TAs’ support,” “It was great. I want to learn more. If you will hold advanced lectures, please notify us,” and “I was able to learn properly from the basic techniques.”

We hope to welcome many more participants in the coming years!