Blog: CIPS Chair Update from Amsterdam! (Sept 27th) | Canada's Association of Information Technology Professionals

Sept 26 - Well the World Computer Congress finished up yesterday, with a rousing discussion on Competency Models in the morning session and the closing sessions on Innovations in Health Care in the afternoon. The European Commission has developed, yet another Competency/ Skills Framework that they hope will be adopted by all the EU countries. See European e-Competence Framework v2.0 http//www.ecompetencies.eu

Sept 27 - This morning I had the pleasure of participating in the IP3 AGM, which also had very engaging discussions on how IFIP and the IP3 can assist countries with developing ICT industries mature the IT profession and begin to certify professionals. There were reps from Japan, South Africa, Britain, Australia, Canada(of course), and Zimbabwe.

Also we had a few hours to catch a train to the city center and see a few more sites and 'smells' of Amsterdam. See the tourist pictures from today.

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Check out these links: http://www.wcc-2012.org/ , http://www.ipthree.org/

Sincerely,

Brenda Byers, I.S.P., ITCP

Chair, CIPS National Board

Sept 25 - It is now 10:30pm Amsterdam time and we've had another great day of presentations. Many of you would have been interested in the presentation on Flash Crashes, Trading Algorithms and Systemtic Risk by Philip Treleaven, Professor of Computer Science, London University. The main messages was the research is unable to predict the markets and determine why they do what they do. The PHD work is concentrating on systematic risk modeling and determining what regulations can be put in place to reduce the instability (ie. placing a charge per transaction, time minimum on stock trades etc). So far all the models seem to make the instability worse?

Another great session was on Skills and practices for a successful Innovator. The theories and teaching on how to innovate is a more mature science that I knew. Peter Denning, Naval Postgraduate School, USA and Alain Chesnais, Past President ACM Canada, had interesting presentations on how innovation teams are built and some of the amazing technologies coming out of the teams. Such as the product which was sold to Adobe called Scene 7 Image Server, which you can zoom in and out on an object and get extreme detail when buying the product, you can change color of a jacket you are shopping for etc. all computer generated images. The message from this session was never say it can't be done.

Also I'm adjusting to always shoulder checking when I walk and never wander into the bike lanes. 99% of commuters ride bicycles, see the pics. Bikes and scooters are as plentiful as cars and trams. Pedestrians beware!

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