An online webinar was organised on the 7th of February 2022 from 12:30 to 14:00 to discuss this topic of Women and HPC.
HPC, or “High Performance Computing”, is used to solve complex problems in science, engineering, business and industry. However, there are very few women in these fields. This sector is looking for talent in Luxembourg and it is also important to spread the word about the use and potential of HPC to the general public. As in many other ICT domains, women are under-represented in this innovative and strategic sector. Diverse talents are needed in Luxembourg to make it happen. The strategic importance of this technology was underlined during the event.
We know that HPC will have a strong impact on our daily life, especially in the field of health and environment so it was significant for us to give more visibility to the women who are working on it in Luxembourg.
We were honored and pleased to welcome Mr Franz Fayot, Minister of the Economy, for an opening speech. It was an opportunity for him to recall his involvement in this theme and to recall the work done so far, while keeping in mind the work that remains to be done. You can find this speech on the Youtube channel of the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy.
The introduction was presented by Marina Andrieu, director and co-founder of Women in Digital Empowerment (WIDE), who recalled the importance of raising awareness on topics that matter and bringing quality content to our audience and participants.
Then, we moved on to the panel session for which we invited various professionals from the Luxembourg and European landscape:
- Josephine Wood, Senior Programme Officer, EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
- June Lowery-Kingston, Head of Unit “Accessibility, Multilingualism & Safer Internet, European Commission and DG Connect Equality Coordinator
- Diem Bui, Solution Engineer at Supercomputing & Data Solutions team, LuxProvide
- Ramona Caulea, in charge of the Competence Center HPC, Luxinnovation
Marina Andrieu moderated this panel by asking our guests about their backgrounds, their daily life in this field, their aspirations and their advice. A real sharing of good practices for those who would like to start in HPC.
The event ended with a Q&A session where our participants could ask all their questions to our panelist.
We would like to thank our panelists for inspiring us with their stories and for joining us for this webinar. A warm thank you to our many participants, who took part in this event! The enthusiasm generated confirms the need to talk about this topic.
