The 15th CHPC Coding Summer School
and
The 7th NITheCS Summer School on the Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Science
27 January - 7 February 2025
The Coding Summer School takes place in a physical form at various university and research locations around South Africa and Southern Africa. Students are required to attend one of the designated locations.
Representation from 2024 CSS
See all the research institutes that took place in 2023:
Background
The Summer School is jointly organised by the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the National Institute for Theoretical Computational Science (NITheCS). This joint effort was specifically motivated by a concept paper of the South African Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) that explores the possibility to broaden the scope of NITheP (National Institute for Theoretical Physics) into a national institute/centre for theoretical and computational science.
Aim of the School:
"Train researchers across South Africa and Southern Africa the fundamentals of scientific computing and data science."
Structure:
The school's structure included daily lectures, interactive tutorials, notes, quizzes and assignments.
Experts from a range of domains will also present STEM talks, exposing participants to the various skills in scientific computing.
Zoom is used to live-stream the lectures, and Slack is used as the official communication medium.
Canvas is used as the learning management system for hosting course notes and assignments.
Format:
- Lectures/tutorials occur Monday to Friday
- Lecture/tutorial times: 09:30 - 16:00 with breaks each day
- Notes and exercises provided
- Certificates awarded to qualifying students
Week 1:
Week 1 topics:
-
Mastering Pandas
-
Code profiling
-
Workflow management: extract, transform, load (ETL)
-
Exploratory data analysis (EDA) and management
-
Bash Basics
Week 2:
Week 2 topics:
-
Scaling code
-
Probability Theory and Statistics
-
Machine Learning
-
Artificial Intelligence
Coordinators:
CHPC: Mr Binjamin Barsch, Dr Kevin Colville, Miss Nomlindelo Mfuphi
NITheCS: Prof Francesco Petruccione, Dr. Thuthukile Khumalo, Mr Aluwani Guga
Application and Registration:
The CHPC and NITheCS calls for all talented students registered for a postgraduate degree or if your a researcher in industry, to submit their applications.
The registration fee is free for all successful applicants, however the students must attend the designated university locations. As public-funded institutions, the CHPC and NITheCS support the transformation of South Africa and thus the School organizers highly encourage students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds to submit their applications.
Registration is required for students to partake in the CSS, that includes receiving any type of certificate or letter of participation.
Please take note:
- A background in Python programming is required and an acceptance test needs to be done to successfully join the coding summer school
- No accommodation and no travel costs will be covered.
- Light snacks and refreshments will be served.
- Limited space is available at each venue. If capacity has been reached by late registrations then students will need to attend online.
Entrance Test:
- Note you have to complete the entrance test after registering for the Coding Summer School. The entrance test is compulsory to complete.
- The sooner you complete it the sooner you will be informed whether or not you qualify for the Coding Summer School.
- In preparation for the entrance test, we recommend you do the free https://alison.com/course/python-for-beginners course, no payment is necessary to complete the course.
- We will also make an optional online software carpentry course available later in the year for students to attend.
Certification:
Certificate of Completion:
Letter of Participation:
Registration dates:
Starting date for registration: 24 September 2024
Closing date for registration: 13 December 2024
Notification of Successful Candidates: will be notified within a month after registration and completion of the entrance test
School Dates:
School start and Orientation: Monday 27 January 2025 @ 09:30 AM
School end: Friday 7 February 2025
School Organizing Committee:
Prof Francesco Petruccione (UKZN & NITheCS)
Dr Werner Janse van Rensburg (CSIR, NICIS-CHPC)
Mr Binjamin Barsch (CSIR, NICIS-CHPC)
General Inquiries:
For general inquiries, please log a ticket at the following link: https://chpc.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new and select "Coding Summer School" as the category.
Important: Privacy
In compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA) No. 4 of 2013, please read the CSIR's Privacy Notice: https://www.csir.co.za/csir-privacy-notice
Purpose for the collection of personal data:
- To make contact with you with any matters regarding this course;
- Information on your academic background is used by the organisers to determine if you are eligible to participate in this event;
- To report to the Departments of Higher Education and Training, Science and Innovation, and the Services Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA);
