Report from the sustainability chairs & Keynote 2 – Bran Selic. Matching Software with Reality

Chaired by Iris Reinhartz-Berger.

The essential nature of modern software methods and corresponding technologies can be traced to the earliest applications of computers. The very term “computing” clearly reveals a foundation firmly grounded on mathematical logic and an algorithmic worldview. However, the range of applications of computers has grown immensely since those early days, and we are now in an era of what are rather euphemistically termed “smart” systems. Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of such systems is that they are intended to do the “intelligent thing” when interacting with a complex, idiosyncratic, and potentially unpredictable physical and/or social environments. In this talk, we first examine the primary shortcomings of our current computing methods and technologies in addressing such contexts, after which we identify some possible research directions that may hold the potential to deal more effectively in these circumstances.

Speakers