The Council on Competitiveness has premiered its video on the importance of high performance computing. The DVD now is available on its Web site for $9.95.
Narrated by the penguins from the animated movie “Madagascar,” the video was created by DreamWorks Animation SKG in collaboration with the Council. The effort depicts how HPC enhances the everyday life of consumers. A preview of can be seen at www.compete.org.
According to Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council, the video is both educational and an outlet to spur innovative thinking. “This short DVD can be shown to everyone, from the highest levels of government to elementary school children,” she said. “We hope it will help policy makers recognize the importance of HPC to our national competitiveness and ability to innovate for the future, while also helping young people to appreciate the fun of math and science.”
HPC impacts many facets of our everyday life, from medicine and consumer products to energy and aerospace. The video reinforces the importance of HPC for its ability to deliver breakthroughs in innovation on many levels, while also subtly reinforcing the need for its efforts to receive continued support. More than 30 organizations helped on the video, including industrial HPC users and manufacturers, software developers, universities and national laboratories.
“DreamWorks Animation was pleased to help produce this DVD for the Council,” said Ed Leonard, chief technology officer for DreamWorks and a member of the council’s High Performance Computing Advisory Committee. “High performance computing is essential in creating movies like ‘Shrek’ or ‘Madagascar.’ We simply would not be able to produce them without it. We wanted to help showcase the many ways HPC supports leading businesses as well as how it touches people’s lives every day.”
For more information on the video, check out the “HPC and Penguins: An HPCwire Q&A” feature in this issue. It contains an exclusive question-and-answer session with Leonard and CoC Vice President Suzy Tichenor.