Another Step Towards the Sustainable HPC Outreach Ecosystem

The ultimate goal of outreach activities is to connect with individuals outside or at the periphery of the HPC community and empower them to become the next generation of HPC professionals. While most large centres and organisations have some outreach staff, many small HPC centres find the development and maintenance of an outreach program a serious challenge. Although some STEM activities have been modified for HPC, not many have been created to focus on HPC concepts, skills and/or concerns. It is only when we consider outreach in the wider context that the shared opportunities, concerns, challenges and resources are visible. For the purpose of developing sustainable outreach we define an ecosystem whose audience includes researchers; students (primary through graduate school); individuals who encounter HPC during their professional life; the general public; policy makers and heads of funding agencies. To address this audience, outreach activities include programs ranging from engaging the future workforce to building support among the general public to informing policy makers and industry about the value of HPC. Many steps can be taken to make this ecosystem more sustainable. For example, building a repository of diverse activities allows facilitators to borrow, use and extend those activities, to lower the burden on individual facilitators, especially novices. This BoF session will gather HPC Outreach facilitators from across the community to share challenges, experiences, lessons learned and strategies for developing sustainable Outreach programs. The discussions will be captured into a shared document that will guide future community efforts.