Future directions in technology jobs and the challenge of finding and equipping enough ICT professionals to meet the changing needs of a digitally disrupted world will be the focus of a keynote presentation by Big Data expert, John Morton, at the upcoming IFIP World Computer Congress 2015 in South Korea. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at CPM, the strategy and architecture consultancy, Mr Morton chaired the Global Industry Council 2020 Skills Report for IFIP’s International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3). He will discuss some of the key findings of the report and explore how disruptive forces like Big Data are changing the types of skills ICT professionals need in order to deliver effective solutions for the future.
“Big Data is not just about data management and analytics, but also about psychology and peoples’ motivations, environmental and geographical impacts, ecology, governance and social responsibility,” explained Mr Morton.
“Social Media, the Internet of Things and greater interconnectedness between systems are massively increasing the flood of data available in real-time, offering new insights and intelligence for organisations with the ability to analyse it.
New Insights Drive Change
“Some of the patterns and insights we are getting are unexpected. This requires a different way of thinking and engineering systems, and a willingness to consider changing our behaviour when the data contradicts what we’ve always thought to be right.
“Even long-established procedures for requirements gathering ? which is fundamental to any technology project ? are changing and becoming more complex because of the amount of uncertainty we are dealing with on a daily basis,” he said. “However, the benefits for those that get it right can be huge, as seen in the case of Levi Strauss, which used Big Data to tailor new jeans for different markets, resulting in a seven to eight per cent lead over its competitors.”
Mr Morton said the predicted loss of up to 43 per cent of existing jobs by 2030 due to automation and robotics, along with anticipated strong growth in demand for ICT professionals, will radically change the workforce landscape. “We must begin now to prepare for a future in which ICT professionals play very different roles than they do today,” he said.
The World Computer Congress 2015, to be held from 4-7 October at the Daejeon Convention Centre, is expected to attract over 2,000 people to hear scores of speakers across 13 different conference streams.
Mr Morton is one of four keynote speakers at the ICT Job Forum stream, along with:
· Andy T. Chen, President & CEO of Catronic Enterprise
· Mark Mueller-Eberstein, CEO & Founder of Adgetec Corporation and
· Eve Andersson, Senior Manager, Accessibility Engineering at Google Research
With the theme of “WCC 2015, Opening our Future Together”, the four day event will include specialised conference streams addressing:
· Education http://wcc-2015.org/TOPCIT.php and http://wcc-2015.org/IP3.php
· Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) and System-on-Chip (SoC) technologies (http://www.vlsi-soc.com/)
· Artificial Intelligence http://wcc-2015.org/IFIP_TC12_AI.php
· Big Data http://wcc-2015.org/IFIP_TC8_Big-Data.php
· Enterprise Information Systems http://wcc-2015.org/CONFENIS.php
· Digital Equity http://wcc-2015.org/WORKSHOP_ON_DIGITAL_EQUITY_speakers.php
· Young ICT Professionals http://wcc-2015.org/IFIP_InterYIT.php
· Information Security http://wcc-2015.org/ISES_Speakers-panel.php
· Technology in Agriculture http://wcc-2015.org/CCTA-2015.php , and more.
