Patricia J. Teller Ph.D
General Chair; University of Texas at El Paso Department of Computer Science; El Paso, Texas
Describe your event. The SC Supercomputing Conference (SC08) is the premier international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. It attracts scientists, researchers, software developers, network engineers, policy makers, corporate managers, CIOs and IT administrators from universities, industry and government.
What surprised you the most? In addition to the conference itself, we had six large planning meetings in Austin and several smaller ones. When planning for these meetings and the conference, it was pleasantly surprising how well the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB), the Austin Convention Center and the hotels worked together to help us make the conference as well as each of our meetings a success. A sense of cooperation, rather than a sense of competition, among the hotels was evident and welcome. Also, it was pleasantly surprising to have the ACVB working side-by-side with us from the day we started planning. We felt like they were part of our committee. Also, the convention center staff was awesome in terms of providing for the demands that the conference puts on the electrical infrastructure, security and catering. Given the conference’s need for the availability of food near the exhibit floor, Aramark and the Austin Convention Center even built a food court of sorts off one of the loading docks—incredibly innovative! Also, the variety of venues for dinners and events was very rich and diverse.
What did your attendees seem to enjoy the most? The availability of restaurants near the convention center and the availability of hotels close to the convention center. We would have liked to have all the rooms that we needed close to the convention center, but it appears that in a few years that will be possible. The diversity of music venues in the area was much appreciated by many of the attendees. We had musical entertainment at the opening of the conference, at the Exhibitors’ Reception and at the Technical Program Attendee Event at Star Hill Ranch. We hired the Spazmatics and the HeyBale Orchestra, in addition to the Gillette Brothers, Mariachi Garibay, salsa dancers, Teye & Belen (flamenco guitarist and dancer) and Native American drummers and dancers.
How does Austin compare to other cities where you have hosted meetings? SC08 attendees gave Austin high marks—higher than some cities and equal to those that were also on the A list!
Would you return? I definitely think the conference should return to Austin.