Meet our Key Note Speakers…

1. Professor Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson (Virginia Commonweath University)

Research Interests include Data Mining, Knowledge Management, eCommerce, Information Systems Security, Database Systems, Expert & Decision Support Systems, Group Support Systems, Information Systems Outsourcing, Information Systems & Productivity, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Keynote Title:So that We may Feed from Our Own Gardens: Research Agendas for Development

Abstract: In a world dominated by ‘developed’ countries, ICT artifacts are typically developed based on the assumed needs/requirements of such countries. Thus often the focus of ICT practice and research is not primarily aimed at satisfying human development needs with respect to the majority of humanity. It is therefore important that ICT research also focus on the development of appropriate artifacts for human development. In this presentation we discuss the development of research agendas that are relevant to human development, particularly in ‘developing’ countries, and provide illustrations of such research.

2. Mr Danny Naidoo (Global Head of Innovation, Old Mutual Group)  

Information to follow soon...

3. Nikolai Tillmann, Principal Research Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Research

Nikolai Tillmann’s main areas of research are program authoring on mobile devices, program analysis, testing, optimization, and verification. He leads the Pex project a framework for runtime verification and automatic test case generation for .NET applications based on parameterized unit testing and dynamic symbolic execution. He is also involved in the Spur project, where I am working on a tracing Just-In-Time compiler for .NET and JavaScript code. Most recently, he started the TouchStudio project, which enables the writing of programs for mobile devices on mobile devices. This project brings the excitement of the first programmable computers to mobile devices such as smartphones. Before coming to Microsoft Research, he was involved in the development of a school management system in Germany.

Keynote Title:Future of Software Engineering on Mobile Devices

Abstract: The world is experiencing a technology shift. In 2011, more touchscreen-based mobile devices like smartphones and tablets will be sold than desktops, laptops, and netbooks combined. In fact, in many cases powerful and easy-to-use smart phones are going to be the first and, in especially in developing countries, possibly the only computing devices which virtually all people will own, and carry with them at all times. Furthermore, mobile devices do not only have touchscreens, but they are also equipped with a multitude of sensors, such as location information and acceleration, and they are often connected to the cloud. Although these devices have sufficient memory and processor capacity, they present challenges for user interface design, especially when going beyond typical consumer tasks and instead considering content creation, and even application development or editing on a phone. In the talk we will consider the capabilities of these devices now and in the future. As an example of what is already possible, we will present a new tool from Microsoft Research, TouchStudio, which is an application creation environment that runs on the smartphone itself, no separate PC required.