Although I’ve not been to ISC myself (I’m thinking next year is my year), when I got I’m really looking forward to the Hot Seat Sessions. From the conference
Unique to ISC, the Hot Seat Sessions are two afternoons of to-the-point presentations by industry powerhouses in computing, networking, data and storage, and supercomputing centers in Europe, Asia and North America. Each speaker has 10 minutes to present their organization’s newest strategy, product or research developments. A panel of expert “inquisitors” then asks each speaker two in-depth follow-up questions. The speakers have only five minutes to offer their responses—on the spot in front of an expected 1,500 conference attendees.
“Vendors send their best people—sometimes even their CEOs—to represent them at the Hot Seat Sessions because they know they will be asked difficult, probing questions by some very well-versed inquisitors in front of a knowledgeable audience,” said ISC Conference Chair Prof. Hans Werner Meuer of the University of Mannheim.
The two Hot Seat Sessions are on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons this year, and all conference and exhibit attendees are invited.
Session 1 will find representatives from Microsoft, Intel, IBM, BlueArc, Bull, Spectra Logic, Fujitsu, Cluster Resources and NEC on the hot seat. During Session 2, experts from Sun Microsystems, Supermicro, Hewlett-Packard, SGI, Mellanox, Myricom, QLogic, Force10 and Cray will be on the spot. For a complete list of speakers and presentation titles, go to www.isc09.org/hotseat.