Welcome to the 14th annual Oil and Gas High Performance Computing Conference by the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University.
This year the conference has gone virtual due to COVID-19. Though we will miss seeing you in person, this has become an opportunity to invite broad participation for our speakers and attendees who come from all over the country and all over the world. I would like to thank you for checking in with us for an exciting day of talks and discussions on challenges and opportunities in high performance computing with special focus on the Energy Industry.
In recent years, the Energy Industry is beset on all sides by important changes, such as growing demand for computational capacity, incorporation of data science and machine learning in the traditional workflow, increasing market volatility, increasing concern on environmental footprint, competition from, and even switching to, renewable energy, as well as the demand for reliable infrastructures. Regarding the last issue, I am sure many of us in Houston in the recent weeks, have come to a chilly realization of the importance of resilient infrastructures.
Motivated by all these issues, we are bringing together the best minds here today. Recognizing that discovery and innovation happens at interfaces of disciplines and communities, the conference aims to convene a diverse set of people spanning industry, academia, and national labs. We hope this conference can engage and encourage you to connect and partner on big important ideas.
The conference features a remarkable lineup of keynotes by leading experts on Friday, March 5th, complemented by pre-recorded technical presentations and student posters available for viewing starting on Wednesday, March 3rd. To end the conference, a set of post-conference workshops are scheduled for Friday, March 12th, 19th, and 26th and are available to all attendees.
Looking into the future, next year will be the 15th year of the conference. To move with the times, we will be changing the name from the Oil and Gas HPC Conference to the Energy HPC Conference to reflect our evolving world.
We hope that you will thoroughly enjoy the conference and use the networking opportunities to initiate collaborations and promote technological innovation that will address computing demands as well as other issues in the energy industry in our city, nationally and internationally.
The Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice has the distinct capability to connect people to collaboratively solve critical global challenges by fostering innovations in computing and harnessing the transformative power of data. We are thrilled to put this capability at the service of our regional and national energy and high performance computing communities.
We are grateful to our sponsors, partners, and attendees, who share our enthusiasm and who seek the opportunity to support and engage with the community. We want to recognize our sponsors who have allowed us to have complimentary registration for all attendees. Finally, we would like to say a special thank you to the exceptional Keith Gray and the Conference Committee for their many contributions to this year’s conference at this unusual time. This conference happens because of your efforts.
On behalf of the Conference Committee, our fellow constituents and sponsors, Rice University and the amazing Ken Kennedy Institute team led by our executive director Dr. Angela Wilkins, I want to thank you for being here.
Enjoy the conference.
Lydia Kavraki
Director, Ken Kennedy Institute
