Your First Time at ISC: A Friendly Guide to Surviving and Thriving
What do you get when you take 3500 HPC professionals from different countries and backgrounds and put them into a conference centre together for 5 days? Well, ISC of course!
From the outside as a first-timer, ISC can seem like a scary and daunting experience, but when you get involved you’ll find it to be one of the friendliest, most exciting places to be if you’re passionate about supercomputing. I attended ISC for the first time last year as a WHPC Travel Fellow and I can wholeheartedly say it made the biggest impression on me of any conference I’ve ever attended! From packed halls full of people at the keynote sessions, to the buzz of conversation in the exhibition, and the excitement of hearing about cutting-edge work in the research paper and poster sessions, ISC is bursting with incredible things to do and fantastic people to connect with.
If you’re joining us at ISC for the first time this year then here are some things you might want to know before you go and some advice from someone who survived their first time last year!
Conference jargon can get a bit confusing, but there are a few key kinds of sessions at ISC. Here’s a quick guide to what you might see going on:
These are the main featured talks throughout the week of ISC. They are given by expert speakers, aimed at a broader audience, and highlight the biggest ideas, trends, and challenges facing current HPC.
Opening Keynote & Session, Midweek Keynote: Open to “Conference Pass” holders
Closing Keynote & Session: Open to “Exhibition Pass” holders
BoFs are more informal discussions. They give people who share a common specific interest the chance to gather, discuss, ask questions, and exchange ideas. These sessions often include lots of audience interaction and the chance to contribute your own thoughts and ideas.
Open to “Exhibition Pass” holders
These are a chance for the vendors at the conference to display their products and platforms side-by-side. They get a chance to pitch their offerings and explain what problems they are trying to solve, and explain how they compare to other products on the market. Roadmap sessions also let vendors explain where they are going in the future and what they have coming soon. Questions are a mix of moderated questions from the host and the chance for the audience to ask questions.
Open to “Exhibition Pass” holders
Fishbowls are interactive panel discussions where audience members get to join and rotate into the discussion to add their perspectives and voices. A few panellists start the discussion and then the audience can step in to speak. These are fast-paced and a good chance to hear a range of viewpoints.
Open to “Conference Pass” holders
These are discussions led by a group of experts and directed by a moderator. Each of the panellists gets a chance to share their viewpoints and debate the issues. There are some pre-set questions and they are supplemented by questions from the audience.
Open to “Conference Pass” holders
These sessions involve researchers presenting their work from peer-reviewed papers on a range of different topics. Sessions are grouped by theme of papers so you’ll see lots of work related to one theme in a given session.
Research Paper Sessions: Open to “Conference Pass” holders
This is the chance for people presenting posters to give a lightning talk on their work and why you should come and see their poster and talk to them.
Research Poster Pitch: Open to “Conference Pass” holders
WHPC Poster Pitch: Open to “Exhibition Pass” holders
This is where you’ll find vendors and organisations all gathered together. The exhibition hall is huge and spills out into a couple of other spaces. In the exhibition you’ll find demonstrations and have the chance to meet company representatives and researchers.
The exhibition can seem overwhelming at first – there are just so many stands and so many people! However, I found it really interesting to speak to different groups. If you’re not sure how to start these conversations it can be really useful to have a simple line to fall back on to start conversations. I used a lot of conversation starters like “I’m a PhD student and I’m learning more about HPC, what is it that you do?” or “I’ve heard you work on [insert thing here], could you tell me more about that?” or even just a simple “Can you tell me a bit about your organisation?”. Lots of exhibitors are very keen to talk to people and will take the time to explain what it is they do, especially if you say you are early-career or new to the field!
However, probably the most famous bit about the exhibition is the free swag! You’ll acquire more tote bags, stickers, t-shirts, and pens than one person can possibly use, but the swag often includes great and useful products and it’s well worth stopping off to chat to people and grab some. Last year I got a great collection of socks, notepads, rubber ducks, stickers, and friendship bracelets!
Comfy clothes and shoes: You’re going to be walking around a lot and could be on your feet chatting for a long time – comfy shoes are a must! Also consider your clothing choices: obviously you want to be presentable and feel confident for networking but consider skipping scratchy or uncomfortable clothes as days at ISC are long. There is a cloakroom where you can leave jackets but think about what you want to carry around with you all day.
Stay hydrated and well-fed: You’ll find you’re walking and talking a lot more than you realise so make sure to stay hydrated. There are lots of places to fill water bottles and also public fridges where you can grab water and some soft drinks throughout the day. Make sure to grab food during the lunch breaks – the food at ISC is pretty good, and you’ll want to be fuelled up for your day. You can also find fruit and some little snacks around the conference centre so use coffee breaks to grab something quick too.
Sort your schedule: Download the Swapcard app and star the sessions you want to attend ahead of time so you have your own personalised schedule. It’s worth having a scroll through what’s on each day the night before or over breakfast to plan what you want to attend throughout the day. Don’t leave yourself rushing between sessions or accidentally miss something you care about!
Take time to reset: Not every coffee break needs to be a networking moment. Make sure you take breaks when you need them. Grab some fresh air on the terrace of the conference centre or go for a quick walk if the weather allows it. It’s also totally okay to find a space to do some work or answer emails – people understand that everyone is very busy!
Connect with people you meet: Scan their badge on your Swapcard app to see their profile or add them on LinkedIn. It’s a great way to stay in touch and build your network. Interesting discussions at ISC can open doors to opportunities, collaborations, and new networks.
Take notes or photos: There is so much content at ISC for your brain to process, and I often saw interesting things or great speakers I wanted to follow up with but didn’t have time to speak to in the moment. I kept a list on my phone of things to follow up on and took photos of slides or posters with results I wanted to find out more about.
Keep in touch with the community: WHPC has a slack channel especially for ISC where you can find out what events are on and also join people for casual coffees and catch-ups throughout the week. Make sure to join to see what’s going on!
Most importantly at ISC – have fun! There truly is so much to see and do, so make the most of it, meet some wonderful people, and share your own work with the world!
If you want to hear some more top tips for ISC from our community then check out or LinkedIn posts and Slack. You can also see this incredible guide from Suzanna Gardner:
TOP500 announcement: Find out which supercomputers have excelled in the last six months and see new, up-and-coming systems rise!
Exhibition opening reception: Network with the community, grab some food and drinks, and speak to vendors! You can also check out the ‘Tech Talks by Women in HPC’ which is taking over the community stage.
Keynotes: Full of interesting research, science, and tech, the keynotes are a great way to find out about exciting developments in the field and get a broader background on the HPC landscape.
Poster Pitches and Reception: Find out about a range of computing projects and hear about the work of lots of early-career researchers. Then grab a drink (and maybe a sweet treat too!) and meet the presenters face-to-face to find out more about their work.
WHPC events: WHPC has an incredible programme lined up this year. Don’t miss the return of the Super(computing) Heroes BoF on Wednesday, meet up with the community on Tuesday at the Community Stage, and see our WHPC moderators in action across the week. See our website for full details of all the WHPC activities happening at ISC!
Grab your comfy shoes, fill up your Swapcard schedule, and get ready to be engrossed in the HPC community — ISC is just a week away, and I hope you’re as excited for it as I am! See you in Hamburg!
Author: Sarah Johnston
Make sure to check out Sarah’s blog about her first ISC High Performance experience as a 2025 WHPC Travel Fellow: https://womeninhpc.org/women-in-hpc-events/how-the-whpc-travel-fellowship-transformed-my-isc-experience