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Wednesday Jun 02, 2010

The IT crowd

What do you think of when someone mentions Information Technology? Computers, games, gadgets and geeks? What about Pioneers of IT? Do you know who came up with the World Wide Web? Or who brought computers outside the lab and into our homes?

Information Pioneers is a campaign launched by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT which seeks to answer these exact questions and do away with stereotyped notions of the industry being dull or geeky. To showcase this campaign, five films have been made to highlight the lives and accomplishments of five Information Pioneers.

Who would have ever thought that Hollywood actress Hedy Lamar would come up with the first idea for frequency hopping which is the basis for the Wi-Fi, GPS and mobile! Or that a creation as wonderful as the World Wide Web could have been created by a Brit, Sir Tim Berners-Lee?  Whilst Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron was the first computer programmer, Sir Clive Sinclair saw the potential of home computers at a time when they were thought to belong only in labs and code breaker Alan Turing first came up with the idea of a thinking computer - what we now know as artificial intelligence.

Each pioneering story is brought to life in the film by a celebrity advocate, these include Ortis Deley from the Gadget Show, Match Point actress Miranda Raison, an ex-cricketer turned TV personality Phil Tufnell, BBC Click Reporter Kate Russell and comedian, actor and author Dom Joly.

A report by BCS called 'Why we should love IT?' demonstrates that actually, young people do not find the IT profession to be dull or boring with 54% of 16-30 year olds asked believing IT to be a challenging and exciting career path.   In addition to this, 49% see IT as a level playing field, with no factors of discrimination whatsoever.  So why aren't more people studying IT?  and specifically, why not more girls?

By first changing people's outlooks on IT, the campaign aims to get more people (and hopefully more girls!) excited about going into the world of I.T and to also realise that anyone can have the vision to do something great. Who says you can't be an actress and a techie? Or that you have to go to University in order to be a Pioneer? Sir Clive Sinclair certainly didn't, yet still achieved enormous amounts.

Get involved, discuss and vote for your information pioneer of all time at http://pioneers.bcs.org. Perhaps, one day you'll be up in the leader board!

Posted by Helen ( 1:09 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[2]