Let the Journey Begin!

Hello everyone! My name is İrem Okur. I am 21 years old and I’m from Turkey. I’m a third-year Computer Engineering student at Dokuz Eylül University. Some information about me; I love to travel and eat local food in the places I visit. Also, I love trying new things in every field. I will write about my experiences, here, while working with my amazing team.

While I was enthusiastically seeking a programme in which I can improve my programming skills along with fully contributing to the team, my professor emailed me about the PRACE Summer of HPC programme. That is where I learned about PRACE and the Summer of HPC programme. Especially after seeing PRACE prioritizing the future of software engineers, I knew that this programme would be a great opportunity for me. Once I found out that I was accepted for the programme I got so excited! I was selected for project reference 2114 which was my first choice because of my interests. The project’s name is “Re-engineering and optimizing Software for the discovery of gene sets related to disease” and its organization is EPCC in Edinburgh.

It is a big opportunity to work with supercomputers. With the help of the Summer of HPC Programme and Project 2114, I will learn about the process of optimising real-life problems. The project aims to re-engineer genomicper so that it can analyze larger and current data sets quickly. This programme will help me to see people from various cultures even it is online! Therefore this will also benefit me in a way that it will allow me to work with incredible people. Of course, while doing this, my programming skills will be increased too.

First Impression

My amazing fellow PRACE summer of HPC teammate Aybüke Özçelik and I met our Project Mentor, Dr. Mario Antonioletti; Project Co-mentor, Dr. Pau Navarro before the training week to get to know each other better. They were so helpful and understanding. This made me realize how lucky I am! I cannot wait to work with them after the training week. I am sure that we will be a great team!

Stay tuned for my next posts! Let the PRACE Summer of HPC programme begin!