AEROSPACE

The Council on Competitiveness announced today that it is sponsoring a panel on the importance of advanced computing to U.S. competitiveness at the SC2004 High Performance Computing Conference, the world’s leading conference on high performance computing, networking and storage. The conference will take place November 6-12 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Council on Competitiveness panel, chaired by David Shaw, Chairman of D.E. Shaw and Company, will focus on the linkages between industrial use of this critical technology and competing successfully in a global economy. The panel discussion entitled, “Leadership in a Global Economy: ‘Out-compete’ means ‘Out-compute’” will begin Tuesday, November 9th from 3:30 p.m. until 5:00 p.m at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in rooms 317-318. In addition to Mr. Shaw, featured speakers on the panel include: Andy Hendrickson, Head of Production Technology, PDI/DreamWorks; Sharan Kalwani, CAE HPC Manager, General Motors; and Irene Qualters, Vice President, Research Information Services, Merck & Co., Inc. With technology, talent and capital available globally, the U.S. is facing unprecedented competitiveness challenges from abroad. Panelists have been chosen from different industrial sectors to discuss these challenges, the economic benefits high performance computing can create today and in the future, and the business and technical barriers to more aggressive use of HPC. “We are pleased to have this opportunity to sponsor a discussion on the importance of HPC as a driver for innovation and competitiveness," said Deborah Wince-Smith, President of the Council on Competitiveness. "The national HPC Users Survey the Council recently unveiled points out that this technology is essential for business survival, reinforcing our conviction that in today's globally competitive environment, the country that wants to out-compete must be able to out-compute." For a copy of the complete survey report, visit www.compete.org. For more information on the SC2004 conference agenda, a list of panelists, or to register for the event, please visit: www.sc-conference.org/sc2004/. The Council on Competitiveness is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose members are corporate chief executives, university presidents, and labor leaders dedicated to setting an action agenda to drive U.S. economic competitiveness and leadership in global markets. The Council helps shape the national debate on competitiveness by concentrating on a few crucial issues including national and regional innovation, competitiveness and security, globalization, workforce development, and the benchmarking of U.S. economic performance against other countries. For more information about the Council on Competitiveness, please visit www.compete.org.