CIPS NS Dinner Meeting
Topic: IT Disconnect: High Demand / Low Supply
Speaker: Daniel L. Silver, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Acadia University and
Director, Jodrey School of Computer Science
Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Time: 5:00 pm for registration, 6:00 pm for dinner, 7:00 pm for presentation
Location: Dalhousie University Club Dining Room, Off South Street beside Soccer Field
See map at http://fm.dal.ca/campusmap/index.php?bldg=C440
Cost: Members - $40.00, Non-members - $50.00
Dinner Menu: Regular and Vegetarian options Corporate tables available
To register: On-line , E-mail - Eliza.Hurry@cae.com or Phone 902-420-3070 x 2888
When registering, please provide contact information and dinner choice
Registration deadline is Friday, March 26th
Abstract: Contrary to popular opinion there is a rising demand for Computer Scientists and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals. This is being driven by a steady growth in the industry that now has 25% more people employed than in 2000 and one of the lowest unemployment rates (3%) of any sector over the last 10 years. Add to this an attrition rate fuelled by baby-boomer retirements (40% of the federal IT staff are now eligible) and we have a forecasted demand in Canada of no less than 15,000 workers per year for the next 7 years, 7,200 of which will require university degrees. The bad news is that enrolment in computer science programs began dropping in 2002 following the Dot Com bust and has only recently started to recover. Enrolment in most computer science departments in Canada, US and the UK is down 50% from their enrolment in 2000. What is the reason for this disconnect? Why are so few young people seemingly disinterested in the ICT field? What will this mean to our economy in 10 years? What does it say about our educational systems? And what can be done to turn the situation around? The talk will explore these questions and present recent findings from studies conducted in North America and the UK.
Bio: Dr. Danny Silver is an Associate Professor in and the Director of the Jodrey School of Computer Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University. He completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, after spending 15 years in the software industry. His duties at Acadia include leading and administering the school and teaching courses in artificial intelligence, e-commerce, software engineering and most recently Green IT, and his research focuses on advanced methods of machine learning and their application in data mining, user modeling and intelligent agents. Since 2000, Dr. Silver has been funded by NSERC for research into advanced machine learning methods. He is a founding Board Member of the Acadia Digital Culture Observatory and of the Acadia Centre for Mathematical Modeling and Computation, and is the Past-President of the Canadian Society of Computational Studies of Intelligence (now called the Canadian AI Association). His work on machine learning, data mining, user modeling and adaptive systems has resulted published papers and presentations on artificial intelligence, machine learning, business and marketing informatics and human-computer interaction. Since January, 1993, he has operated a consulting business (CogNova Technologies) that offers services in the areas of knowledge discovery and data mining to companies such as London Life, 3M Canada, Aliant and the Nova Scotia Department of Health.
