IT|ITC|Computing| Computer Science Skills Professor Nigel Shadbolt BCS President

BCS@ nearly 50 Record membership - 60,000 Sound finances New products and services Increasing numbers of candidates taking our exams Leading a successful Professionalism Programme Raising our Learned Society Profile Created a dynamic Thought Leadership Programme Expanding our work with business, government and academia Improving our infrastructure - physical and digital

The Good News Better and more enthusiastic at adopting information technologies compared with European competitors; cited by leading economists as a major factor in recent GDP growth. A net exporter in IT services to the tune of £1Bn. Second only to the US in computing research, with high levels of knowledge transfer into specific industry sectors. Reliant on information technology for delivery and reform in healthcare, education, social inclusion, transport and policing; every major policy initiative has an information technology component. Real trends speak of current and long term increases in the demand for high skill information technologists and CS

Crisis! What crisis? The numbers of students studying computing at University has fallen dramatically – by more than 40% since 2001 Government and HEFCE - we are strategic not vulnerable

What we need to understand The role of IT/Computing in education up to 18 The relationships between computer science, IT/computing as a discipline, and IT Professionalism what they are, what they should be, and how they need to change. Updating and potentially redefining the role and relationships of the BCS for the different segments of the community The IT and CS ecosystems

Industry Ecosystems IT Industry and IT Staff IT-enabled business Growing Digital Economy Public Sector IT-enabled business Growth faster than average UK Gartner results Worldwide knowledge economy Impact of shortages Demographics

Education and Research Ecosystems IT and Computing Experience in schools Often only seen as literacy Can and should it be a first class subject The Critical Period Most HEI teach IT Large number of species, different niches and a food chain All depend on their own output

BCS Ecosystem Skills and competences Overlapping Complementary CSci CEng CITP 8

The threat of extinction… We face a real problem - shared by all STEM subjects IT and computing are vital parts of society and culture Our subject cannot flourish without support of wider community Cannot flourish without a pipeline

The public image is… A poor one Kids bored at school Seen as a world of geeks and nerds Profession associated with IT failures Switch off at School and falling numbers at University This varies from country to country; interesting differences in emerging economies

Reasons advanced include… The public doesn’t care The IT school curriculum The media The technology Us

Reality check… In the UK public appetite for SET exists Urgent need to review IT and computing in schools We need to engage with the media We are in possession of inspirational technology The challenge lies with us

Computational Thinking: A revolutionary paradigm A large part of modern STEM is all about; computational models, representations, abstractions But it goes wider into social sciences and humanities, and business! This is a well kept secret and we need to let it out...

Characteristics of CT and why it matters Complexity and computatbility – how hard is the problem and can it or parts of it be computed The Nature of solutions – what sorts of outcomes will do – approximate or exact, are we able to tolerate false positives and negatives allowed Reformulating a more difficult problem into one we can solve – perhaps using methods such as transformation, simulation Approaches such as recursion and parallel processing Viewing code as data/data as code The role of abstraction and decomposition The search for appropriate representations An appreciation of elegance and aesthetics Anticipating disaster - prevention, protection and recovery in worst case scenarios The constant utilisation of heuristics, planning, scheduling, search, trade offs

This is not just a BCS challenge ... Working with other Learned Societies and Professional Bodies Working with e-Skills Work with CPHC and UKCRC Working with our own volunteers We need your help