Professor Geraldine Fitzpatrick

TU Wien, Austria

Keynote

date: Monday 21 June 2021

Software engineering is more than code – human skills are essential

In this age of digital transformation, software engineers are increasingly playing critical societal roles. There are of course the long-standing challenges around what makes for good algorithms, AI-based systems and the like. The COVID pandemic has also put the spotlight on what we might call the more ‘everyday technologies’ that have enabled new forms of remote work, education, social connectivity, health care, etc. Interestingly, many of these technologies have been under development since the 1990s and earlier, but without wide uptake or impact up to now. One explanation can be the narrow focus on engineering and technology per se and not understanding that software engineering is a fundamentally human endeavour and that putting technology to work is a complex whole systems challenge. This challenges us to see the people at the centre of these software engineering practices – not just the ‘users’ but the ‘engineers’ creating these solutions. Good software engineering skills are increasingly necessary but not sufficient. Good software engineering will also require fundamental human skills (social-emotional-ethical intelligences) to work in teams, and engage across disciplines and with multiple stakeholders, and to address different levels of concerns, negotiate diverse impacts, and so on. How do we develop these essential human skills?

Bio

Geraldine Fitzpatrick is a Professor of Technology Design and Assessment and leads the Human Computer Interaction group at TU Wien in Austria. She is an ACM Distinguished Speaker, and is recognized as an ACM Distinguished Scientist, an IFIP Fellow, and an IFIP TC-13 Pioneer. She has a diverse background, with a PhD in CS&EE (Uni of Queensland), an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology/Coaching Psychology (UEL), experience in academia, industry and consultancy/training, and a prior career as a nurse/midwife. In previous IT-related roles, she was Director of the Interact Lab at Uni. of Sussex, User Experience consultant at Sapient London, and Senior Researcher at the Distributed Systems Technology CRC and Centre for Online Health in Australia.

In all her work/careers she takes a concern for people-led perspectives, quality of experience and developing potential. Her academic research is at the intersection of social and computer sciences, with a particular interest in collaboration, health and well-being, and community building. She sits on various international advisory boards and steering committees and was general co-chair for CHI2019. She is host of the Changing Academic Life podcast series and runs leadership and development programs for academics at all levels.

Professor Lionel C. Briand

The University of Ottawa
The University of Luxembourg

Keynote

Date: Tuesday 22 June 2021

AI in Software Engineering: A 25-year Journey

There is a long history of applications of various Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in software engineering. From machine learning, evolutionary computing, to Natural Language Processing, AI has played an increasingly important role in making software engineering more predictable and automatable. This rising impact stems from increasingly powerful AI technologies, easy access to enormous computing power, and the availability of large amounts of software data in readily available development repositories. This talk will provide a reflection over 25 years of experience in applying and tailoring AI techniques to address software engineering problems at scale. I will try to abstract away and identify patterns of hard software engineering problems requiring solutions based on AI. Challenges will be characterized and interdisciplinary research avenues will be outlined.

Bio

Lionel C. Briand is professor of software engineering and has shared appointments between (1) The University of Ottawa, Canada and (2) The SnT centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust, University of Luxembourg. Lionel was elevated to the grades of IEEE Fellow and ACM Fellow He was the recipient of the IEEE CS Harlan Mills award in 2012. He also received an ERC Advanced grant in 2016- on the topic of modelling and testing cyber-physical systems- which is the most prestigious individual research award in the European Union. More recently, he was awarded a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) on “Intelligent Software Dependability and Compliance”. His research interests include: software testing and verification, model-driven software development, applications of AI in software engineering, and empirical software engineering.