Update: IT Skills for the Recession/Recovery event

A successful event BCS Northampton   IT Skills for the Recession/Recovery was held in the Newton Building, University of Northampton on the 9th March 2011 organised by Sarith Chandra,  Rashmi Dravid,and a team of University Students.

Speakers included
-Professor Kamal Bechkoum, Dean of School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton
-Rachel Cooper, QA/Risk Leader, GE Captial (UK Home Lending)
-Jonathon Berg, Director of Paradise Computing Ltd
-Ashley Cooper, Principal Consultant, Parc Ellis solutions Ltd

The event took the form of speaker presentations, a networking session and a panel discussion.

The audience included IT professional, and students (and some ex-students). Over 57 people attended with over 80% of those who filled in the feedback form, rated the event of high value and of a high standard.

For more details of past and future events can be found at BCS Northampton Branch.

IT Skills for the Recession / Recovery

Date/Time
Wednesday 9th March 2011, 18:30 for registration, start at 19:00. 

Venue: 
Newton Grand Hall, Newton Building, Avenue Campus, University of Northampton, St Georges Avenue, Northampton, NN2 6JD

Maps: http://www.nvision-ipt.com/Contactus.aspx
Participants will be able to park around the back. You just need to drive down the small road to the left of the building and press the intercom button on the barrier and say you are there for the BCS event. 

Cost:
Open to members and the general public, no cost.

Speakers:
Large Business, Local Business, Recruitment / HR Agency, University, IT Training provider

Summary:
"Skills needed during a recession can differ from those when it’s ‘Business as usual’.  Appreciating this difference is essential to surviving in the current climate.

We have a new Government which is looking hard at budget cuts and this means redundancies in both public and private organisations. There is optimism that IT will play an important role in the economic recovery that is already being felt in certain sectors.

So, How do you know what skills are needed in this day to strengthen your value within your firm and wider industry? How do you prepare for a job search in this environment?
How do you hold down a job and progress within your organisation? How do you set yourselves apart from your peers?

Finally, if you are a fresh graduate, then what can you do to increase your chances of securing a job?"

For more information:
http://northampton.bcs.org/forthcoming_events.php?menu_id=4

Contact information regarding event and on the day:
Sarith Chandra MBCS (csarith@bcs.org - 07919113702)

 

Subject talks: Recommender systems

As part of the subject talks in computing programme organised by Rashmi Dravid, a recent talkby Dr Iqbal Adjali (Mathematics & Informatics Expertise Team Leader Unilever R&D Discover) looked at Personalisation Algorithms for Grocery Recommender Systems. 

This informative (and interesting) talk  introduced some of the concepts involved in developing personalisation algorithms for the grocery retail sector, and discussed wider aspects such as the business challenges that have or are likely to be addressed.

  

The talk used the work of Unilever's  Mathematics & Informatics group to illustrate how recommender system work. This group has been investigating various personalisation algorithms, in order to understand how their performance varies according to different data sets and application scenarios. The work of the group was illustrated by examples, the group has been working on, including the Swiss online supermarket LeShop (www.LeShop.ch), in analysing individual shopping basket (cf. loyalty card) data. As part of this collaboration, an on-line personalised retail recommender systems was developed, which also serve as a test-bed to evaluate the performance of their personalisation algorithms.