BCS Policy & Campaign Priorities 2021-2025 – Welsh Briefing

By neiltaylor on July 22, 2021

John Higgins, the President of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, is hosting a session for IT professionals in Wales. This will look at the key themes that BCS is working on in the coming year, including Diversity and Inclusion, Professionalism, Digital Divide and IT and NetZero.

John will be joined by Tom Crick and Wendy Dearing for a Q&A section of this event.

All IT professionals are invited to attend this event.

Date and time

Tuesday, 27 July 2021, 18:30 – 19:30 BST

SPEAKERS

  • John Higgins CBE, FBCS, President BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
  • Professor Tom Crick MBE
  • Professor Wendy Dearing FBCS

AGENDA

18:30 – Zoom session starts
18:35 – Introduction to Chair and Panelists
18.45 – Presentation on the four themes and campaign goals
19:00 – Panel discussion and audience Q&A
19:25 – Summary
19:30 – Close

SYNOPSIS

The BCS President is working closely with the team at head office to streamline BCS activity under four themes & campaign goals agreed and signed off by the BCS Trustee Board and Council:

  • Our digital lives should be in the hands of competent, ethical and accountable professionals.
  • Greater diversity and inclusion in the IT profession benefits society.
  • The Digital Divide is a modern measure of inequality; it can be closed by access to skills as well as technology.
  • The world will achieve Net Zero more rapidly with support of digital and data technologies.

This webinar series is an opportunity to hear from the BCS President about the four themes, how they will be taken forward across the BCS and ask questions. 

Expert panels will be convened to provide context and identify how the key themes can intersect with the wider contexts across the UK and internationally.

Tickets

Register for free tickets on the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bcs-policy-campaign-priorities-2021-2025-welsh-briefing-tickets-146734672355

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Headline Speaker: John Higgins CBE FBCS 

President 2021-2022 

John was director general of TechUK’s predecessor Intellect and then DigitalEurope. He chairs the Global Digital Foundation, a think tank, and is a senior advisor to Burson, Cohn & Wolfe and the EU’s Intelligent Cities Challenge. He was appointed CBE in 2005 for services to the IT industry.

Speaker: Professor Tom Crick MBE

My academic interests sit at the research/policy interface: education and skills, science and innovation policy, digital transformation, public service innovation and skills/infrastructure for the digital economy. Also, identifying data-driven and computationally-intensive problems across a range of domains: data science, big social data, cyber security, intelligent systems, smart cities, software sustainability and computational reproducibility.

Speaker: Professor Wendy Dearing FBCS

Wendy Dearing Dean of the Institute Management and Health University of Wales Trinity St David . Is now Dean of the Institute of Management and Health University of Wales Trinity St David until recently was Head of Workforce and Organisational Development with a nursing background. She holds an MSc in Change & Innovation and recently has been awarded an Honorary Professorship from the University of Wales Trinity St David. The professorship in Applied Practice has been awarded in recognition of Wendy’s expertise and knowledge in championing professionalism in technology and information. She is a Fellow of the BCS and Leading Practitioner of Fed-IP.

The event is free. Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.

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BCS Mid-Wales Programming Contest Results

By neiltaylor on June 28, 2021

The BCS Mid-Wales Programming Contest 2021 was held on Saturday June 26th. 

Participants had four hours to complete programming puzzles online, coordinated using the BCS Mid-Wales Discord server. Puzzles included some classical problems from the Sphere Online Judge (SPOJ) programming contest site, and some tailor-made puzzles written by the contest organisers.  Over the course of four hours, all entrants managed to solve several of the tasks. 

As we entered our final half hour, team Travelling Salesmen had a clear lead over all other participants. Excitingly, second place slot (and best individual performance) was tied three-ways.  Laurence Tyler pulled ahead in the last 20 minutes by solving a COVID-safe-cinema-seating puzzle, to come second overall and first in the individual category.  

The best student performance was a tie, with Sonny Ash and Adrian Dębski level on 60 points when the bell rang at 4pm. The best student prize was determined by a tie-breaker sudden death puzzle which gave the event a truly nail-biting conclusion. 

Congratulations to all participants, particularly the winning team (Travelling Salesmen) who solved all bar one puzzle (showing us that we have to come up with some harder challenges for next year!).

Best team: Will Wright, Sean Seow, and Julian Chong win prizes worth £50 each.

Best non-student individual: Laurence Tyler wins a prize worth £50.

Best student individual: Adrian Dębski wins a prize worth £50.

Second place student individual: Sonny Ash wins a prize worth £25.

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Programming Contest 2021

By neiltaylor on June 14, 2021

We are pleased to announce the second online BCS Mid-Wales Programming Contest. This is open to BCS Mid-Wales members, university students, and other interested parties.

When: This will be held 12noon to 4 pm, Saturday June 26th 2021

Where: Entirely online

What: This is a timed event where participants solve puzzle like problems through coding. We will have a set of problems so that teams can solve several in the time allowed, and will enable submissions in a large number of different programming languages.

There will be small prizes in all categories (individual and team). Teams can be up to 3 people.

For more information and sign-up details, see the form at office.com. Sign-up is available until 11am on the day of the event.

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Does Digital Transformation need a dose of social responsibility?

By neiltaylor on June 14, 2021

On Friday 25th June, we are pleased to co-host a talk by Dr Ian Harris, from Aberystwyth University. Ian will be talking about “Does Digital Transformation need a dose of social responsibility?”

The talk is at 6.30pm on Friday 25th June 2021.

The session is on Zoom. It is free and open to everyone.

To attend the event, please book your free ticket on Eventbrite. You will be sent the Zoom link after booking.

The waiting room on Zoom will start at 6.15 and the talks will start at 6.30pm.

The talk is hosted with the Department of Computer Science as part of its week of events for UK Robotics Week 2021.

Synopsis

Exploring Industry 4.0 and the impacts of digital transformation from a social science perspective with views on production, employment (particularly semi-skilled work), business ethics, and a comparison of rhetoric verses the reality of digital transformation. 

Biography

Ian has blended academia with business over the preceding 35 years. Having experience in FMCG operational management with Walmart, Strategic and Tactical consultancy for numerous FTSE 100 companies in Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing and E-Business. He was also part of the team (Programme Director) that captured the biggest Venture Capital investment in Welsh history (Ubiquity, VOIP).

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Developments in Robotics and Vision at Aberystwyth

By neiltaylor on June 14, 2021

We are pleased to co-host an event with the Department of Computer at Aberystwyth University on Monday 21st June at 6.30pm.

This session will see a series of short talks giving an overview of the latest research and development in robotics and computer vision at Aberystwyth. This covers research topics ranging from home, land, sea, air and space robotics. The talks will be followed by a panel with the opportunity to ask questions to the researchers involved.

We will be joined by the following researchers: Dr Fred Labrosse, Dr Helen Miles, Dr Colin Sauze, Dr Patricia Shaw and Dr Myra Wilson.

The session is on Zoom. It is free and open to everyone.

To register for the event, please go to the Eventbrite page and book your free space.

The waiting room on Zoom will start at 6.15 and the talks will start at 6.30pm.

The talk is hosted with the Department of Computer Science as part of its week of events for UK Robotics Week 2021.

Speaker biographies

Speaker: Dr Fred Labrosse: Fred is a senior lecturer in Computer Science, his research concerns Robotics and Computer Vision, and in particular the interface between the two fields, working on the use of visual sensors and visual navigation methods. He is also interested in the practical applications of robotics, collaborating with many customers who need sensors in remote and dangerous places.

Speaker: Dr Helen Miles: Helen is a lecturer in Computer Science and a researches graphics and visualisation, and she has recently been applying this to work on the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars mission to help scientists and engineers plan for how to use the PanCam remote sensing instrument on the rover.

Speaker: Dr Colin Sauze: Colin is a research software engineer working on the Supercomputing Wales project, where he helps to solve “big data” and machine learning problems. He previously worked on autonomous boats for oceanographic sensing and surveying glaciers.

Speaker: Dr Patricia Shaw: Patricia is a lecturer in Computer Science and researches how to develop robots that can learn in the same way children do. She is also interested in how robots can work alongside people both as companions and assisting independent living for those with severe disabilities.

Speaker: Dr Myra Wilson: Myra is a lecturer in Computer Science. Her research interests include evolutionary robotics, ad-hoc networks, and biologically inspired robotics. She has worked on projects investigating how control systems can be evolved to improve UAV placement for ground based communications over large areas.

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Do no harm?

By neiltaylor on March 25, 2021

We are pleased to welcome Lucy Hunt to lead an interactive session exploring potential whistleblowing situations in recent media stories & presents findings from her latest research.

This is on Tuesday 20th April, starting at 6.30pm. This free event is online and open to everyone.

Synopsis

On discovering that your team or organisation is creating harmful software what would you do?

The ACM Code of Ethics states that “a computing professional has the obligation to report any signs of systems risks that may result in harm” and that “if leaders do not act […] it may be necessary to blow the whistle”.

This interactive session will explore potential whistleblowing situations in recent media stories and present the findings from my latest research.

To sign-up, visit the Eventbrite page: https://20april2021midwalesbranch.eventbrite.co.uk

The session is on Zoom. The link will be shared to registered attendees closer to the time of the event.

Biography

Lucy is a PhD student at Lancaster University, researching whistleblowing in software engineering.

She worked as a software engineer, IT consultant and business analyst for over 20 years before completing a cyber-security masters and starting her PhD in 2018.

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Research at the Interface between Computer Science and Medical Image Understanding

By neiltaylor on March 10, 2021

We are pleased to welcome Prof. Reyer Zwiggelaar to talk to us about computer aided diagnosis research related to breast and cancer research. this is on Zoom on Monday 15th March at 6.30pm. It is free to attend and open to everyone.

To book your place, please register on Eventbrite. The Zoom link will be shared with attendees closer to the start time. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-at-the-interface-between-comp-sci-and-medical-image-understanding-tickets-144233633681

Synopsis

This session will cover computer aided diagnosis research which I have been involved with over the past 25 years, with a strong emphasis on work related to breast and prostate cancer. I will cover a range of more traditional image processing techniques to more recent deep and machine learning techniques, which have been used for segmentation and classification/staging purposes.

Speaker Biography

Reyer Zwiggelaar received the Ir. degree in applied physics from the State University Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic and electrical engineering from University College London, London, U.K., in 1993. He is currently Professor in Computer Science (and Head of the Graduate School) at Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, U.K. Professor Zwiggelaar has published over 300 publications in JCR journals and peer reviewed conferences. According to Google Scholar he has an h-index equal to 32. He has attracted in excess of £5,000,000 in research funding, mainly as principal investigator, from RCUK/HEFCW. He has supervised 17 PhDs to completion and he is currently supervising 6 PhDs. He is Associate Editor of Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and Associate Editor of Pattern Recognition.

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Demystifying DevOps

By neiltaylor on January 24, 2021

We are pleased to welcome Craig Watson as our first speaker for 2020. He will be taking a practical look at what DevOps is and what it can mean for businesses.

Location: Zoom event
Date: Monday 8th February
Time: 8pm (Zoom connection open from 7.45)

The event is free and open to everyone. Please see the event booking form: https://8feb2021midwalesbranch.eventbrite.co.uk. The Zoom link will be shared with those registered for the event. If you have any questions about the event, please contact neil.taylor@bcs.org.

Synopsis

DevOps can be a fuzzy, mystical mess of opinions, tales and thoughts, splattered over a wide area, with little consensus. In this talk, I’ll try to clear up the fuzziness and add my practical hands-on spin on what DevOps is, what it can mean, and how to wade through the quagmire of opinions.

Biography

Craig is currently Manager of Systems Engineering in ForgeRock’s internal IT team, based out of Bristol, UK. He has over a decade of industry experience spanning start-ups, professional services consultancy and large enterprises, and has worked on infrastructure for the likes of Liverpool FC, Lush, Superdry, Canary and Secret Sales. After graduating from Aberystwyth, his career started as a traditional systems administrator, but over time, he has embraced the DevOps revolution and has a keen interest in modern software-driven DevOps principles, cloud-native infrastructure-as-code and configuration management automation, as well as Agile ways of working.

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5G & The Future Mobile Network

By neiltaylor on November 12, 2020

On Monday 23rd November, we are pleased to welcome Tim Curry, Principal Network Architect at BT, to talk about “5G & The Future Mobile Network”. This event is jointly organised by BCS Mid-Wales and BCS South-Wales branches.

5G has been in the news a lot recently, but what is it all about? Do we need another “G” (Generation) of mobile technology? Is it safe? Is it true that 5G will enable Augmented Reality, Remote Surgery, Factory Automation and Self-Driving Cars? What is the engineering and commercial reality behind current UK deployments of 5G and what can we expect in the future?

The event is online. Sign up for your free place at the event using Eventbrite.

AGENDA
18:15 – Online session starts
18:30 – Talk starts
19:30 – Q&A
20:00 – Close

The event is free to attend and open to everyone.

Speaker Biography

Tom Curry is a Principal Network Architect at BT. Tom was the lead architect for BT’s 5G Launch in 2019 and has also worked on many other projects at BT including:

  • Integration of the BT Fixed & EE Mobile Networks
  • BT’s Network Cloud (Private Cloud) & Mobile Cloud Core (4G/5G Cloud-Native Core)
  • BT’s 4G Assure (2019 ISPA Award)
  • BT 4G Femto (prior to acquisition of EE by BT in 2016)

Before joining BT, Tom worked at Alcatel-Lucent/Nokia, Cable & Wireless and Metaswitch.

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AGM 2020 and ‘IT and the fight against Covid-19’

By neiltaylor on October 15, 2020

The AGM is on Monday 19th October 2020. The formal notice was sent out to members at the start of October.

We are pleased to announce the speakers for the session that follows the AGM. The theme of the sessions is “IT and the fight against Covid-19.”

The AGM starts at 18:30. The talks will start at 19:00. All of the session will be on GoToWebinar.

We have four separate sessions and there will be time for Q & A at the end.

The speakers and talk titles are:

Rebecca Cook and Gareth John from NHS Wales Informatics Service – Title: COVID-19: The data behind the Welsh pandemic response

Chris Williams from Public Health Wales – Title: Handling Covid-19 data

Nick Dimonaco from Aberystwyth University – Title: CoronaHack: Computing vs Coronavirus

Addy Pope – ESRI UK – Title: GIS and Covid – data, information, knowledge and resilience

To register to join this online event, please go to the Eventbrite link and sign-up.  

The event is free and open to everyone.  We are looking forward to what promises to be an interesting session.

We have a two talk descriptions available at this time.

Addy Pope: GIS and Covid – data, information, knowledge and resilience

2020 has not been a normal year. Things that seemed certain became uncertain. Things we took for granted were suddenly inaccessible. The science of where and spatial data has never been so important.  In this talk we will show you how GIS has been central in the fight to understand and mitigate the impacts of COVID.  From public health dashboards to cutting edge research, ESRI has been supporting its customers provide information and answers through rigorous analysis of data.

Nick Dimonaco: CoronaHack: Computing vs Coronavirus

CoronaHack, an event where over 1,000 Health experts, Data scientists, economists, clinicians and researchers from all over the world came together to find new ways to combat SARS-CoV-2 on many different fronts. As part of a team which focused on the genomics of the virus, identifying mutational changes which may have enabled the virus to jump host-species to human, I will discuss how new technologies both helped and hindered our progress during and after the 5 day event.

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