Bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Into the Heart of SC21 Planning
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has taken a central role in this year’s SC21 conference planning. There are nine dedicated sessions with a DEI element, and the DEI philosophy surrounds all of this year’s Students@SC and Student Cluster Competition events. In addition to these events, we will have a staffed Inclusivity office on-site in St. Louis, in room 125 of the America’s Center. Thanks to our submitting authors, conference chairs and volunteers we are pleased to announce our complete schedule of DEI events.
Sunday, November 14
Women in HPC: Diversifying the HPC Community and Engaging Male Allies
Workshop (W)
Online and Room 222
Running from 9 am–5pm, this workshop will focus this year on career development with invited talks engaging on everything from building a professional network to recognizing and preventing burnout. This workshop also has two Distinguished Speakers joining the line-up with Debra Golfarb of AWS taking attendees through career lessons learned and Dr. Valerie Taylor of Argonne National Laboratory speaking about increasing diversity in supercomputing.
Monday, November 15
SC First-Timers Orientation
All Registered Attendees
Room 102
Starting at 4:30 pm, this session is dedicated to those experiencing their first time at SC. Led by Cristin Merritt and Wil Mayers, they will take you through conference highlights as well as provide suggestions on sessions and events that would best suit participants. Those attending are welcome to walk with the session leaders to the Science & Beyond Plenary Session on the Intersection of Ethics and HPC being held in the Ferrara Theatre (and online) happening immediately after the session.
Tuesday, November 16
Representation of Women in HPC Conferences
Technical Program (TP)
Rooms 240-241-242
A paper about the representation of women at nine peer-reviewed HPC conferences found that women only represented 10% of authors. This talk will discuss the impact of these and other findings from the paper.
Inclusivity Talk: Inclusive Excellence in Computing – It’s Not About the Students
Technical Program (TP), Workshop (W), Tutorial (TUT), Exhibitor (XO)
Online
Taking place 12–1 pm, the SC21 Inclusivity Committee is pleased to welcome Dr. Shaundra Daily of Duke University to speak about the social and cultural promise that can be found in shifting the trajectory of computing towards a more open and broad set of identities and fields of study. Dr. Daily will discuss the current state of diversity in computing, challenges associated with centering interventions on marginalized groups, and how we can move towards a more inclusive future of computing.
Invited Talk: The Importance of Diverse Perspectives in Advancing HPC
Technical Program (TP)
Ferrara Theatre
The SC21 Community is pleased to welcome Dr. Valerie Taylor of Argonne National Laboratory to St. Louis to speak about advancing diverse perspectives in HPC. She will be taking the stage from 2:15 pm to share her insight into the movement towards a better, more inclusive supercomputing community.
Affinity Groups: African-American/African, Hispanic/Latinx, and LGBTQIA+
Technical Program (TP), Workshop (W), Tutorial (TUT), Exhibitor (XO)
Online: Discord
Our first set of affinity groups will launch this year on Discord starting at 2:00 pm with the African-American/African community followed by Hispanic/Latinx at 3 pm and LGBTQIA+ at 4:00 pm. SC Affinity Groups are moderated places where attendees of similar identities can meet to create community, form mentoring and collaboration relationships, share techniques for managing a career in HPC, and whatever else seems right for the group.
African-American / African Affinity Group Information
Hispanic / Latinx Affinity Group Information
LGBTQIA+ Affinity Group Information
Wednesday, November 17
Words Matter! Promoting Inclusions through Language in Advanced Research Computing
Technical Program (TP), Exhibitor (XO)
Rooms 223-224
This Birds of a Feather (BoF) session is focused on the continued work of the Extreme Science Engineering and Discovery Environment (XSEDE) project in fostering research environments where language is free from terminology that prevents a more inclusive workspace. This session runs from 12:15–1:15 pm.
Affinity Groups: Women & Femmes, People with Disabilities
Technical Program (TP), Workshop (W), Tutorial (TUT), Exhibitor (XO)
Online: Discord
The second set of affinity groups on Discord will be the Women & Femmes group starting at 2 pm followed by the People with Disabilities at 4 pm.
Women & Femmes Affinity Group Information
People with Disabilities Group Information
Thursday, November 18
Ethics in HPC
Technical Program (TP), Exhibitor (XO)
Rooms 223-224
This Birds of a Feather is a continuation of the discussions on HPC ethics that started in SC19. This session will expand on ethical behavior, societal norms to foster a pathway to ethically aligned design of HPC solutions and autonomous/intelligent systems that do not intentionally perpetuate global inequality. The BoF runs from 12:15–1:15 pm.
Affinity Group: Indigenous People
Technical Program (TP), Workshop (W), Tutorial (TUT), Exhibitor (XO)
Online: Discord
Our final affinity group of the conference will provide space for Indigenous Peoples in the SC community to gather. Join us online.
Indigenous Peoples Group Information
AJ Lauer, SC21 Inclusivity Chair