GOVERNMENT
ISC Puts Leading Tech Companies on the 'Hot Seat'
Who will be on the Hot Seat at the 2008 International Supercomputing Conference? Leaders from as many as 18 of the world's top technology companies, who will participate in one of the conference’s most popular offerings—the “Hot Seat Session.” 
The Hot Seat Session is an afternoon of to-the-point presentations by industry powerhouses in computing, networking, data and storage. 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 more than 1,000 conference attendees. “Vendors send their best people—sometimes even their CEOs—to represent them at the Hot Seat Session because they know they will be asked difficult, probing questions by some very well-versed inquisitors and that they will have only five minutes to give their response,” said ISC Conference Chair Prof. Hans Werner Meuer of the University of Mannheim. “The speakers need to be able to think on their feet and give very clear, succinct responses. It is a lively, thought provoking afternoon, which our conference attendees look forward to.” The ISC ’08 Hot Seat Session will be held in two parts on Thursday, June 19; the first from 2 p.m.–4:15 p.m. and the second from 4:45 p.m.–7 p.m. Additionally, this year’s Hot Seat Session will feature a talk by world renowned Andreas von Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and currently chief architect and senior vice president of Sun’s Systems Group. His talk, Architecting the Future: Petascale Systems and Beyond, will look at the challenges involved in developing architectures for petascale computing systems, including processors, interconnect topologies and physical plant requirements such as power, cooling and packaging. For more on the Hot Seat Session, including a list of inquisitors, please see http://www.isc08.org/hotseat. ISC, which marks its 23rd anniversary in 2008, has a well-established reputation for presenting well-founded, precise and up-to-date information in an environment that encourages informal conversations and sharing of ideas. ISC is also the largest high performance computing exhibition in Europe, and 90 of the leading hardware, software and services vendors are expected to fill the exhibition hall in Dresden during ISC ’08. All conference proceedings are conducted in English. There is still time to register online for ISC'08. An online registration form is available at http://www.isc08.org/registration. A link to hotel information is available from the registration page. To learn more about the conference program, please visit the ISC‘08 homepage at its Web site.
The Hot Seat Session is an afternoon of to-the-point presentations by industry powerhouses in computing, networking, data and storage. 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 more than 1,000 conference attendees. “Vendors send their best people—sometimes even their CEOs—to represent them at the Hot Seat Session because they know they will be asked difficult, probing questions by some very well-versed inquisitors and that they will have only five minutes to give their response,” said ISC Conference Chair Prof. Hans Werner Meuer of the University of Mannheim. “The speakers need to be able to think on their feet and give very clear, succinct responses. It is a lively, thought provoking afternoon, which our conference attendees look forward to.” The ISC ’08 Hot Seat Session will be held in two parts on Thursday, June 19; the first from 2 p.m.–4:15 p.m. and the second from 4:45 p.m.–7 p.m. Additionally, this year’s Hot Seat Session will feature a talk by world renowned Andreas von Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and currently chief architect and senior vice president of Sun’s Systems Group. His talk, Architecting the Future: Petascale Systems and Beyond, will look at the challenges involved in developing architectures for petascale computing systems, including processors, interconnect topologies and physical plant requirements such as power, cooling and packaging. For more on the Hot Seat Session, including a list of inquisitors, please see http://www.isc08.org/hotseat. ISC, which marks its 23rd anniversary in 2008, has a well-established reputation for presenting well-founded, precise and up-to-date information in an environment that encourages informal conversations and sharing of ideas. ISC is also the largest high performance computing exhibition in Europe, and 90 of the leading hardware, software and services vendors are expected to fill the exhibition hall in Dresden during ISC ’08. All conference proceedings are conducted in English. There is still time to register online for ISC'08. An online registration form is available at http://www.isc08.org/registration. A link to hotel information is available from the registration page. To learn more about the conference program, please visit the ISC‘08 homepage at its Web site.