“What is HPC?” presentation now in beta

At insideHPC we believe in the power of HPC as a “universal intellectual amplifier” (with credit to Dan Reed). HPC is unique among the disciplines that enable innovation in that it applies across all domains. HPC and supercomputers are helping create advancements in medicine, astronomy, manufacturing, logistics, finance, and just about every other discipline that uses computing.

Each one teach one.

We HPC’ers are a small community, and one thing we aren’t very good at is articulating what it is we do in a way that nontechnical people can relate to. And that’s where this presentation comes in.

Linked below is a short presentation that you can use as part of your next tour, high school visit, or chamber of commerce lunch to tell people what it is you do, and why it matters so much. It was developed with the thoughtful comments and insight of the readers at insideHPC.com, and we want to keep making it better. For more background on the goals and motivations of this presentation, check out this post. Send me an email with your thoughts, criticisms, or chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Download the presentation: [Large PDF](16MB) [Small PDF](.6 MB)

A note on the format: I created this presentation with images from iStockPhoto.com with their standard license. I believe this license prohibits me from making the raw PowerPoint presentation generally available. This was strictly a cost decision — there is an extended license available that removes these restrictions, but since I’m funding this out of my own pocket, it’s out of reach for me. If you’d like to help me expand the license, let me know (I think it will cost about $2,000).