Institution of Analysts and Programmers

The full programme is now available. Click the image to view it.

As members will have noticed from the IAP’s LinkedIn group, this year’s Autumn symposium (title: ‘The Virtual World’) is to take place at the Churchill War Rooms, Westminster on 14 October. We’ve assembled an impressive group of IT industry leaders who have agreed to make presentations. They are (in alphabetical order, and, by a strange coincidence, in the order they’ll be speaking):

• Neil Cross, who has 30 years’ experience in the IT industry and is currently Managing Director at Advanced 365.
• Richard Hall, Managing Director at CloudOrigin, who was previously UK Chief Technology Officer and Marketing Director for Avanade.
• Henry Nash, a hugely successful entrepreneur who has built five successful companies with global reach and is currently Manager for IBM’s Cloud Solutions, following their acquisition of Transitive Corporation, his previous company.
• Simon Rice, who is Principal Policy Adviser (Technology) at the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• Dale Vile, who is Managing Director at Freeform Dynamics, a research company specializing in investigating the practicality of emerging or rapidly changing areas of IT. In a 25-year career, Dale has worked with major pharmaceutical companies, Sybase, JD Edwards, SAP and Nortel Networks among many others.

Here’s a brief outline of their presentations:

Neil will take a look back at how we have arrived at this point and forward to where we could be going. Along the way he will break the journey at the present time and consider the kinds of issues facing the modern IT director and what the software developer deploying to the Cloud can do to mitigate them.

Richard will review the journey from selling and developing traditional on-premise software to becoming a Cloud-based Software-as-a-Service provider.

Henry will consider how Public Cloud computing offers on-demand, flexible, “maintenance included” computing and storage for all, at a cost that is making every CFO sit up and take notice.

Simon will explore the impact that a move to Cloud computing may have on organisations, specifically from a data protection and information rights point of view.

Dale will round off the symposium by providing us with a ‘View from above the Cloud’, drawing together some common themes and considering their impact on different aspects of IT, particularly focusing on software design and development.

Full publicity material for the Symposium will be available shortly. Check back here regularly or keep in touch via the IAP LinkedIn group.

Alastair Revell, the new Director General of The Institution of Analysts and Programmers, has announced that a new executive structure has been created to lead the specialist professional body forward into the next phase of its development. The move creates a number of executive posts designed to take the thirty-year old Institution into its next decade. Mr Revell said: “The Institution has some very ambitious plans. I have been appointed to realise these plans and the management team I am announcing today will help me fulfil them. The new Executive Board will be critical in driving the Institution forward. We are opening a new chapter in our history today and we are looking at a very exciting future.”

The new team includes:

• Robin Jones, Director for Professionalism and Education
• Paul Lynham, Director for Member Engagement with responsibility for improving the services the Institution offers its members
• John Ellis, Technical and Communications Director for the Institution, responsible for its ICT requirements.

Robin started his career with the BBC’s Engineering Department in the 1960s. He subsequently spent many years lecturing in both further and higher education, before joining the Institution in 1997. He has written some nineteen books, which have been translated into every major European language and has contributed articles to numerous technical magazines. He also used to have his own column in the French edition of Scientific American.

Paul has extensive experience as a freelance software developer. He has worked in a wide variety of sectors. He has been the technical director of a company producing call centre software as well as a lecturer in software for the Open University.

John began his career in the private sector as a programmer before moving into local government to become an IT Development Manager. He then moved into the Insurance sector and most recently has been in the Financial Services industry, working on ISAs, Tax Exempt Bonds and Child Trust Funds.