Want to learn about the innovative computing technologies that underpin CERN’s groundbreaking physics research? Join us for the CERN openlab summer-student lecture programme. It is free and open to all, wherever you are in the world. Lectures will be given by CERN experts on topics ranging from high-performance computing to open data, and from quantum computing to machine learning.

These lectures are organised as part of CERN openlab’s annual summer-student programme. Due to the pandemic, this year’s programme is taking place online, with the selected students participating remotely from their homes across the globe. Over two to three months (June-August 2021), the CERN openlab summer students are working — via remote connection — with some of the latest hardware and software technologies, and learning how advanced ICT solutions are used in high-energy physics. This year, 28 students were selected for the programme from 16 different countries.

“Every year, there is huge interest in our summer student programme,” says Maria Girone, CERN openlab CTO. “This year, well over 1000 students applied. Given this level of interest in our work — not just from students, but from people of all ages from all around the world — we are pleased to be able to make this special lecture series open online to all.”

The full list of open lectures can be found below (all times CEST). Recordings of the lectures will also be made available.

• Monday 5 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Maria Girone: Tackling Computing Challenges at CERN  
• Wednesday 7 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Flavio Pisani: DAQ-filtering data from 1PB/s to 600MSs/s  
• Thursday 8 July, 16:00 → 18:00 | Ricardo Rocha, Spyridon Trigazis: Docker, Kubernetes and other Cloud Native Technologies  
• Friday 9 July, 16:00 → 18:00 | Axel Naumann: Best practices: the theoretical and practical underpinnings of writing code that's less bad  
• Tuesday 13 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Michael Aaron Kagan: Introduction to Machine Learning  
• Wednesday 14 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Sofia Vallecorsa: Quantum Computing for High Energy Physics Applications  
• Thursday 15 Jul, 16:00 → 17:30 | Paul James Laycock: From Raw Data to Physics results 1-3 (recorded)
• Monday 19 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Ahmad Siar Hesam: Intro to High performance Computing with GPUs
• Tuesday 20 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Sofia Vallecorsa: Deep Learning deep dive  
• Thursday 22 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Anna Ferrari: CERN Science for Open Data  
• Friday 23 July, 16:00 → 17:30 | Lukas Breitwieser:  BioDynaMo; From idea to implementation  

At the end of their period working with CERN, the summer students will also give five-minute presentations about what they have achieved through their projects. These ‘lightning talks’ will take place on Monday 6 September and Tuesday 7 September (16:00 CEST) and are open to all. Join us to find out all about the exciting work the students carry out — the talks are always jam-packed with inspiring ideas and innovative solutions.

Finally, if you would like to get even more involved in computing at CERN, be sure to check out the CERN Webfest. The Webfest is CERN’s annual hackathon based on open web technologies; it will take place on the weekend of 21-22 August. The hackathon is open to all and will be held online this year, meaning that people from anywhere in the world can take part. Find out more here.

— Christina Bolanou and Andrew Purcell