CASC Remarks Garrison Walters

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CASC RemarksGarrison Walters

• September 23, 2009

The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education
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ThenComputing and the Economy

• US lead in technology
• Computer technology-driven
• zero PCs in 1980 to 50 million in 1990 (BLS
  hadnt a clue)
• applied in ways no one expected
• IBMs initial marketing of the PC
• Telecom revolution of the 90s amplified computer
  impact
• HPC role rapidly increasing in importance over
  quarter century
• Accelerating product development cycle
• Toyota Avalonno mules
• Jaguar XKat least a year shorter
• People more important than hardware (but we had
  both)

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A Note on Computers and the American University

• First electronic computer
• First spinoff company
• Entire new discipline
• Huge numbers of grads
• Vast numbers of innovations UNIX, RISC, etc.
• Who says universities are slow to change?

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NowComputing and the Economy

• U.S. no longer most educated
• Especially weak at younger levels (means well
  fall further soon)
• Especially weak in science and technology.
• Yesterdays HPC todays mainstream?
• Offers the potential of huge increases in
  productivity and competitiveness
• Wed like to think that will happen, but will we
  have the talent?
• Hardware not an issue--available everywhere
• Making HPC mainstream means two things
• Enough people to take HPC-type solutions to
  medium-sized and smaller business
• Progress in restructuring code for greater
  parallelization
• Will require scale of understanding as well as
  central RD

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The FutureComputing and the Economy

• Standard solution to talent problem do more of
  what weve been doing and hope we get a different
  result
• An alternative approach
• Replace all required K-12 mathematics instruction
  with math embedded in computer/ computational
  science
• Easily cover all the important topics
• Pure mathematics an elective
• Outcomes
• Make todays HPC mainstream
• And also
• More people ready for science, not just
  computer/computational
• More people graduating from high school and
  college
• Math now is a barrier to graduation and a filter
  to science

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Conclusion

• US recognizes the problem of competing on
  knowledge, but not doing much.
• Renewed emphasis on computer/computational
  science is a key part of a successful solution.

The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education
Garrison Walters