It is an irony that computers have succeeded by being boring – almost imperceptible. IT has become invisible because of its ubiquity. As a result, IT professionals are seen not as creators, but mechanics.
The impact of computer systems on society has already been profound. Technology has reshaped the way we work, learn, govern and play through a host of digital devices. The pace of change has been remarkable, with many things that were considered impossible or impractical only a few decades ago now seen as routine.
IT could help have a significant effect on some of the most serious environmental and social problems of the 21st century. But its effect will be marginal unless we are able to attract young people into computing, according to a recent expert roundtable discussion organised by the BCS to consider the changing face of IT and its future.
The discussion highlighted how the digital infrastructure that underpins all IT has supported a shift towards digital forms of work and the formation of e-science, e-learning and e-government initiatives. Yet the technology around us is considered unremarkable and mundane, from the games console to smartcards and RFID tags.
Given the diversity of technologies and the complexity of the infrastructures underpinning them, the nature of digital technology represents both a major accomplishment and a real challenge for computer science.
The continued and accelerating development of ever more powerful digital infrastructures, wireless networks and technical devices will shift computing away from its familiar desktop, laptop and PDA forms.
As technologies such as plastic circuits, smart materials, embedded surgical devices and sensor systems mature, digital technology will become built into the architectures, furniture and daily routine of everyday life.
Computation will be invisibly embedded into the fabric of the world, both sensing and impacting many of our actions.
It will support our children as they learn, protect our safety and security, manage transport infrastructures, monitor and help protect our natural environment, alter the way in which we provide healthcare and continue to have a major effect on society as a whole.
What remains less clear is how we will build the future digital world. How will we reason about the nature of the computation involved? How will we design and engineer a complex technological ecosystem, and how will the future citizen understand it and shape the pervasive technology?
The human-computer interface may well become blurred as time goes by, with increasing numbers of people opting to have implants to assist them while travelling or paying for goods. In future, we will almost certainly experience computers in different ways as we leave familiar keyboards and pointing devices behind.
The panel felt that the next 50 years will see the emergence of new computing paradigms out of quantum physics and biological computing.
However, the gap between rhetoric, hype and experience means some of the young talent we wish to recruit to generate the next wave of computing will not see technology as a fulfilling career direction, primarily because such individuals have a perception that the IT industry does not deliver on its promises.
In fact, the boundary of the technology industry has enlarged to the point where it may actually be meaningless to think of an IT sector.
If we are passionate about our capacity to contribute to tackling the problems of the 21st century, such as health, education and climate change, then we should seriously look at what it means to be a computing professional; the skills and attitudes that we need to generate collectively.
Times and people change. In her Christmas broadcast of 1983, the Queen said: ‘Electronics cannot create comradeship, computers cannot generate compassion, and satellites cannot transmit tolerance.’ However, last Christmas, for the first time, her message was delivered online and made available as a podcast.
In the next 50 years, we will have a working generation that has grown up with computers, the internet and mobile phones. This generation certainly might not remember Pascal or Space Invaders, but one thing we can be certain of is that today’s young people will inherit many environmental and social problems that have been created during the past century.
Young people will ultimately be responsible for implementing the policies and programmes necessary for the reversal of climate change and moving forward the technology revolution.
Most of the solutions to the complex problems that companies and mankind need to resolve have not been realised or indeed solved yet. That is what we should be preparing our students to do.
According to the 12th century philosopher Bernard of Chartres: ‘If we have not seen further, it is because we have not stood on the shoulders of giants.’
We do have giants in our field, but to make best use of them we need to be a learning community and not just a learned community.
