As individuals, though, we don’t generally get a lot of help with our own development through our careers or with managing our relationships with colleagues and clients. The IAP is always conscious that many of its members don’t have the support that is taken for granted in a large organization (that’s why we offer members free legal and accounting advice, for example). So we’re pleased to announce that we’ve just come to an arrangement with a company called Living Words who have agreed to offer IAP members a 20% discount on their coaching services. Click on the link for more information. 
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It goes without saying that IAP members have a wealth of technical expertise and training. Without such skills they wouldn’t be members. But there’s more to personal success than technical abilities, especially at senior levels. Many companies, recognizing this, employ life coaches to help their staff reach their potential.
Charles Ross, FIAP is well-known to IAP members as an energetic leader of the IT community. It is now forty years since he helped to found the Real Time Club. Much more recently, Charles was a member of the Quantum Technologies Action Plan, Q-TAP, with Qinetic and the National Physical Laboratory, for the Technical Strategy Board, a project completed in 2008. He published ‘Biological Systems of the Brain: Unlocking the Secrets of Consciousness’ with Shirley Redpath in the same year. Here, he discusses a new venture for the RTC.
The Real Time Club, the world’s oldest IT Dining Club, is one of the Z/Yen family of enterprises leading many of the most interesting 21st century activities. Some years ago the Real Time Club started a number of projects with the Royal Institution. Brains invented computers. Could our experience of analysing systems and designing hardware and software help in understanding the brain? Huge strides have been made in our knowledge of the components and electrochemical activity of the brain – the hardware, but remarkably little is known about how these translate into how we actually learn and remember, how we think and are creative; and particularly what happens when we pass between sleep and being conscious – the software. The Real Time Club has set up ‘The Brain, Mind and Computing Caucus’ to sponsor the launch of the Brain Mind Forum at a luncheon on 12th May 2010. Inspired by Hilbert’s “Questions for Mathematicians” a century ago, the aim of the Brain Mind Forum is to compile “21 key questions cognitive neuroscience needs to address in the 21st Century”. The lunch will take place at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE from 12:00 to 14:00, and everyone interested in this fascinating subject is welcome. Please go to Real Time Club to book. There you will also find information on the Real Time Club. Download the book With all due respect from the end of the ‘history’ page of the website. Pages 68-77 outline some of the origins of the Brain Mind Forum. Please also register – it is free. The guest speaker at the launch will be John Stein, Professor of Physiology at Oxford University, who will address ‘lunchers’ on his work on neurophysiology and cognition (including movement control, dyslexia and antisocial behaviour), and consider computing-related issues, in a talk entitled “Thinking About Thinking”. Discussion and debate will follow. (Unfortunately, John’s brother, noted chef Rick Stein, will not be cooking for us.) In addition, I will give a brief presentation, as convenor of the Brain, Mind and Computing Caucus of the RTC, on plans for the Forum and the 21 Questions Project. Book your place or register your interest and we will send you a copy of the ‘Action Plan’ we intend to adopt. RTC Vice Chairman Maury Shenk will outline RTC future plans.  Richard Mather receiving his prize On Thursday 25 February, the IAP’s Marketing Manager, Tom Hohenberg, had the pleasurable duty of presenting the IAP Prize for Software Engineering to Richard Mather for his MSc dissertation at the University of Oxford*. Richard’s dissertation is entitled “A Workflow Application and XML Datastructure for Processing Geo-referenced Images”. It is of particular interest to the GIS, remote-sensing and land-management communities, as it allows the automation of image processing where existing techniques are often ad hoc and circumstance-specific.The photograph shows Tom (left), Richard (centre) and Chris Kemp, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Buckinghamshire New University, which is where Richard works as a Senior Lecturer. - - *The Software Engineering Programme at the University of Oxford is an IAP Education Partner. See full details at:
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