Non-profit organisation, the Cape IT Initiative (CITi) and the IEEE Computer Society Chapter (IEEE South Africa Section) are bringing together industry, government and academia to discuss the growth and future of software and software engineering at the third Software Engineering Colloquium in Cape Town on 16 March 2010.
This Colloquium aims to establish tangible and immediate programs to build the South African software industry and create value through engineering.
“One of our primary aims is to put local software engineering on the map,” explains Jenny McKinnell, CITi’s executive director. “And to help achieve this, we have asked some very high-level individuals in the industry to partake in the Colloquium.”
Attendees will include professors, lecturers and students from UCT, the University of Stellenbosch, the University of Western Cape and CPUT, as well as representatives from industry and government.
The technical advisory committee has been meeting extensively over the past few months, and has identified pertinent issues through a series of conversations and eight multi-stakeholder roundtable discussions.
While the Colloquium is not exclusively aimed at software engineers, the agenda is being driven by them. The engineers believe that without the software engineering profession being adequately recognised and accredited, there cannot be a continued growth of world-class software creation locally.
“The bottom line, is there are real people doing real work in this country in terms of software engineering,” says Dr David Hislop, CTO for Korwe and IEEE Senior Member. “They need to be not only recognised, but empowered in the industry.”
Some of the key issues that the technical team believes need to be addressed include the reference model of the Cape software industry; the ICT skills crisis and skills pipeline; innovation, research funding and access to capital; rewards and recognition for software innovators, inventors, designers and architects; legal compliance, IT governance and King III; and the professional recognition of software engineers. Agile development, cloud computing,and open source (FOSS) will also be discussed.
In a survey commissioned prior to the 2007 Colloquium which included input from SMEs based in the Western Cape, as well as software customers and development partners from the bigger enterprises, government departments and training institutions, issues surrounding a shortage of skills arose. “In terms of the supply of skills locally, it has been stated generally by respondents that there is definitely a shortage of adequate skills from the local employable workforce and that it hence makes sense to hire expatriates or even sometimes repatriate skilled workforce from overseas,” the report stated.
The report also highlighted a gap between what is being taught and what is needed by industry identifying “intellectual laziness for innovation and continuous learning” as a major cause of the brain-drain of the ‘gems’ and stagnation of average skills locally.
“Today, three years after the Second Colloquium, the ICT skills crisis remains an issue of critical concern to our industry and academic institutions,” says McKinnell. “It is clear that addressing the issue requires that we speak as one voice and take action. We are hoping that the discussion at the Colloquium will result in the creation of a multi-stakeholder initiative to grow the skills pipeline.”
These issues and more will be addressed and explored at this year’s Colloquium.
This post was submitted by Bonita.
