EESSI · ocaisa · Jul 6, 2026 · Jul 6, 2026 · Jul 6, 2026 · Jul 6, 2026
diff --git a/docs/blog/.authors.yml b/docs/blog/.authors.yml
@@ -124,3 +124,8 @@ authors:
     description: Austrian Scientific Computing (ASC), TU Wien
     avatar: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/35410331?v=4
     slug: https://github.com/adammccartney
+  SebastianAchilles:
+    name: Sebastian Achilles
+    description: Jülich Supercomputing Centre
+    avatar: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/15690556?v=4
+    slug: https://github.com/SebastianAchilles
diff --git a/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/Contributing-to-EESSI-ISC-20260626.pdf b/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/Contributing-to-EESSI-ISC-20260626.pdf
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diff --git a/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/EESSI-tutorial-ISC26-20260622.pdf b/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/EESSI-tutorial-ISC26-20260622.pdf
diff --git a/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/EESSI-workshop-contributing-20260626.pdf b/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/EESSI-workshop-contributing-20260626.pdf
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diff --git a/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/eessi-at-isc26.md b/docs/blog/posts/2026/06/eessi-at-isc26.md
@@ -0,0 +1,218 @@
+---
+authors: [boegel, ocaisa, laraPPr, hvelab, SebastianAchilles]
+date: 2026-06-26
+slug: eessi-at-isc26
+---
+
+# EESSI activities at ISC'26
+
+During the week of 22-26 June 2026, EESSI was part of the official program of the
+[ISC'26 conference in Hamburg (Germany)](https://isc-hpc.com)
+in various ways.
+
+Next to the *Introduction to EESSI* half-day tutorial and a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session we organized ourselves,
+EESSI was also featured prominently in two other BoF sessions, including the one on the *EuroHPC Federation Platform*.
+
+<figure markdown="span" style="display:flex; gap:0; justify-content:center;">
+![](isc26-EESSI-tutorial-sign.webp){width=25%}
+![](isc26-EESSI-tutorial-room.webp){width=25%}
+![](isc26-BoF-01.webp){width=25%}
+![](isc26-BoF-02.webp){width=25%}
+</figure>
+
+In addition, we gave presentations in two workshops, witnessed how EESSI got mentioned by speakers
+in other sessions, and had lots of interesting discussions with members of the HPC community at the ISC exhibit
+or when bumping into people in the hallway track.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+
+## EESSI tutorial
+
+We kickstarted the week on Monday with the tutorials.
+After looking over the fence a bit by attending the half-day [Spack](https://spack.io) tutorial in the morning,
+we presented our own *Introduction to EESSI* half-day tutorial in the afternoon.
+
+<figure markdown="span" style="display:flex; gap:0; justify-content:center;">
+![](isc26-EESSI-tutorial-sign.webp){width=50%}
+![](isc26-EESSI-tutorial-room.webp){width=50%}
+</figure>
+
+About 20 attendees were introduced to EESSI, and learned how it works and how to use it.
+They got to see EESSI in action during live demos, and were invited to experience it themselves
+during the hands-on parts.
+
+Everyone who attended the EESSI tutorial until the end got a free EESSI coffee mug.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](coffee-mug.webp){width=30%}
+</figure>
+
+Some of them left the session a bit flabbergasted by EESSI, and we had only just begun!
+
+[Tutorial slides are available in PDF format](EESSI-tutorial-ISC26-20260622.pdf),
+and the [tutorial website](https://eessi.io/isc26-tutorial/), with extensive guidance for hands-on parts of the tutorial,
+will remain available as well.
+
+
+## Open OnDemand
+
+Before the start of the main event on Tuesday, we met up with Emily from [Open OnDemand](https://www.openondemand.org).
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](ood-logo.webp){width=20%}
+</figure>
+
+We brainstormed ideas on integrating EESSI with Open OnDemand, and discussed updates on the
+Interactive component of the [EuroHPC Federation Platform](https://my-eurohpc.eu) that consists
+of a *federated* Open OnDemand instance that leverages EESSI as the backend for several interactive apps.
+
+Furthermore, we exchanged thoughts on using EESSI as a backend for interactive "community" apps
+in Open Demand that could be shared with and easily used by sites using Open OnDemand, and how
+EESSI fits in with the [Open OnDemand Appverse project](https://openondemand.connectci.org/appverse).
+
+This was a continuation of a conservation that was already ongoing. We hope to show the fruits of this
+collaboration, which started with a [proof-of-concept](../../2025/04/eessi-good.md), some time soon...
+
+
+## Podcast interview
+
+Also on Tuesday, Kenneth was interviewed by [Brendan Bouffler](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanbouffler/) for
+a brand new podcast that will be launched soon.
+
+They talked about what EESSI is and what it enables, and how it grew out of the [EasyBuild](https://easybuild.io) community.
+Additional topics were also briefly touched, like the challenges that come maintaining open source software projects
+like EasyBuild and EESSI, the recent collaboration with Spack, and the impact that LLMs will have on the development of scientific software.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EESSI-podcast-interview.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+Stay tuned for the interview, which is expected to be published in a couple of months!
+
+
+## *Interoperable AI Infrastructure Access Portals Across Europe* BoF
+
+At the end of the day on Tuesday, EESSI was presented by Alan at the *Interoperable AI Infrastructure Access Portals Across Europe*
+Birds-of-a-Feather session.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EESSI-in-UK-fed-BoF.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+During the session, different aspects of federating compute infrastructure were discussed. EESSI was pitched by Alan as a solution to provide
+a uniform software stack across different infrastructures, which was also clear from the short presentation showcasing the *EuroHPC Federation Platform*,
+where EESSI is the base for the *Federated Software Catalog* component (see also our [previous blog post](../../2026/03/efp-webinar.md).
+
+
+## EuroHPC Federation Platform BoF
+
+On Wednesday morning, the Birds-of-a-Feather session on the [*EuroHPC Federation Platform (EFP)*](https://my-eurohpc.eu) was scheduled.
+
+This session was very well attended, with over 200 people in the room.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EFP-BoF.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+It started with a short presentation by Henrik Nortamo from [CSC](https://csc.fi/en/), the technical lead of the EFP consortium,
+introducing the platform and giving a status update.
+
+Right after, Alan showed a quick live demo of using the EuroHPC Federation Platform, including the Single-Sign On login procedure,
+a quick tour of the various features of EFP, and how easy it is to set up interactive sessions through the EFP Interactive component.
+The latter is a federated Open OnDemand instance that is backed by the Federated Software Catalog, which is based on EESSI.
+
+The remainder of the session consisted of an interactive poll to gather feedback from attendees,
+and an open mic to let attendees ask questions.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EFP-BoF-poll-rank-features.webp){width=90%}
+</figure>
+
+The session was concluded by asking attendees to rank the user-facing features of EFP according to their interest.
+The results showed that the *"Uniform software environment across different EuroHPC systems"*, i.e. the Federated Software
+Catalog component of EFP which is based on EESSI, **came out on top as the most interesting feature**.
+
+It is also worth highlighting that all features got a good overall score, which shows that the different aspects of EFP
+will all be valuable to researchers.
+
+## EESSI BoF
+
+On Thursday we kickstarted the final day of the main ISC'26 program with our own Birds-of-a-Feather session for EESSI.
+
+Close to 100 attendees were served a quick introduction to EESSI, along with a live demo that showed how quickly
+it can be to get access to the extensive set of ready-to-use software installations that are provided by EESSI.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-BoF-01.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+The largest part of the session consisted of interaction with the attendees.
+
+We had an extensive interactive poll prepared, which was meant to trigger attendees to
+join the discussion and raise questions.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-BoF-02.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+It turned out that attendees were quite eager to ask questions, and we ended up running the
+live poll while we were answering the questions that people raised.
+The EESSI coffee mugs that we gave to everyone who raised a question, shared an insightful comment,
+or provided an interesting suggestion no doubt helped in breaking the ice, despite the early start
+of the session.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-BoF-03.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+The EESSI Birds-of-a-Feather session was evaluated highly by the attendeed, with an average 8.9 out of 10 overall score.
+
+For more information, see the [slides of this session](EESSI-BoF-ISC26-20260625.pdf), which include the results of the live poll.
+
+## Workshops
+
+On Friday, we wrapped up the week by attending several of the ISC'26 workshops.
+
+EESSI was featured in not just one but *two* different workshops this year.
+
+At the [*1<sup>st</sup> Workshop in Sustainable Practices for Reproducibility in HPC (REPRO-HPC)*](https://repro-hpc.github.io/),
+Helena presented an invited talk entitled *EESSI: Addressing HPC Reproducibility Hurdles Through a Unified Software Stack*.
+
+Next to a whirlwind introduction to EESSI and the use cases it enables, Helena also did a live demonstration of the
+user experience with EESSI.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EESSI-workshop-Helena.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+In the afternoon, Lara gave a short presentation at the [*3rd International Workshop on Readiness of HPC Extreme-scaling Applications (RHEA)*](https://pop-coe.eu/news/events/readiness-of-hpc-extreme-scaling-applications-3rd-edition). She focused on the workflow for adding additional software to EESSI,
+which triggered interest from both attendees and various of the other speakers at this workshop.
+For more information, see the [slides for this presentation](EESSI-workshop-contributing-20260626.pdf).
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EESSI-workshop-Lara.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+Next to our own presentations on EESSI, we also witnessed it being prominently featured
+in the presentation by Krishna Kant Singh at the [*12th Annual High Performance Containers Workshop (HPCW)*](https://container-in-hpc.org/isc/2026/hpcw/index.html).
+
+Krishna talked about the challenges they face with the extensive software stack used in [the EBRAINS project](https://ebrains.eu),
+and how EESSI is currently being explored to help alleviate the problems they have encountered with
+getting their software installed on various systems.
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-EESSI-EBRAINS-workshop.webp){width=80%}
+</figure>
+
+## Final words
+
+ISC'26 was a very interesting and rewarding event for us. We learned a lot, we got to know new people that we may be collaborating
+with in the not-so-distant future, and we have spread the word further on EESSI, which is starting to make bigger and bigger waves
+in the European HPC community, and beyond...
+
+<figure markdown="span">
+![](isc26-stickers.webp){width=50%}
+</figure>
+
+And yes, of course we handed out a whole bunch of stickers!
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