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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. BCS Ecosystem Skills and competences Overlapping Complementary CSci
CEng
CITP 8

9. 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

10. 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

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

12. 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

13. 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...

14. 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

15. 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