Below you will find the full programme for the AIT 2025 Forum, which will bring together a multi-disciplinary set of academics to meet with practitioners and leaders from civil society, business, industry, and government.
The aim of the AIT forums is to foster more critical perspectives on the history of computers, telecommunications, the internet, and related digital media.
Timings: 10am-5pm
Date: Tuesday 28 January 2025
Location: Livery Hall of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists – 39A Bartholomew Close London EC1A 7JN – and online
Book tickets:
Full Biographies of participants
An overview of AIT’s 2025 Forum
10am
Welcome and Introductions by John Carrington, AIT Chair of Trustees and Tola Sargeant, AIT CEO
10.15am
Professor Rich Ling’s opening keynote, ‘Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The Evolution of Digital Norms’
Professor Richard Ling was the Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore until his retirement in 2021. An American, Professor Ling has lived and worked in Norway more than 20 years in key academic and practitioner roles, including as a researcher for the Norwegian telecom firm, Telenor. He studies the social consequences of mobile communication, such as its role in micro-coordination and social cohesion. His books include The Mobile Connection (2004), New Tech, New Ties (2008) and Taken for Grantedness (2012). Rich is editor of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Professor Ling will examine the evolution of norms regarding various digital domains, such as remote work, remote education, and online shopping, before, during and after COVID. Many of these applications were first conceived in the 1980s and ‘90s as digitalisation was developing. With the return to the ‘new normal’ after the pandemic, he argues we were again forced to choose the degree to which we would retain the norms that have shaped the use of these technologies as they continue to be central to our lives.
11am
IT Professionalism in the Digital Age: A Roundtable Discussion
Chair – Prof Jim Norton OBE former Pro-Chancellor of Coventry University who has a long career in technology starting out at the Post Office on its Experimental Packet Switched Services.
Speakers
Paul Martynenko MBE, former IBM senior technical executive for Europe and a BCS Past President.
Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE, IT entrepreneur and Lord Lieutenant of London.
Synopsis: What are the Norms of IT Professionalism in the Digital Age and how can it be improved?
The long running ‘Horizon’ Post Office Saga, and the rise of ransomware and denial of service suggest that the time has come to apply the same logic of professional competence, responsibility and enforcement to software engineering as has long been present in disciplines such as medicine and law. This panel will explore the history of ‘current competence’ status in IT and consider what should be done to resurrect the norms of professionalism in IT and related fields.
It takes time for any given profession to come to maturity and Information Systems/Information Technology is no exception. Digital Information Systems, enhanced by Machine Learning/AI, have now come to underpin everything from National Infrastructure to Medicine and Commerce to Law. Many of these systems are ‘Safety Critical’. We have now had some 15 years of the ‘Current Competence’ ‘Chartered IT Professional’ status. Is it time for a new push to require current competence at each of the key stages in systems development from specification, through procurement to implementation and training?
The UK has a long tradition of defining, promoting and certifying professions not least drawing on the Guilds of the City of London. This is appropriate, given the venue for this Forum is in the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.
12pm-1pm Sandwich Lunch
1pm
Journalism in the Digital Age: Changing Roles and Norms
Chair: Tola Sargeant, CEO, Archives of IT. Tola started her career as a journalist in London before spending several decades as an industry analyst covering the UK tech market.
Keynote by Bill Thompson who will give a talk on Journalism in the Digital Age: Changing Roles and Norms. Thompson describes himself as having had parallel careers as a journalist and technologist. He was co-presenter of Digital Planet on BBC World Service for 20 years, head of new media at The Guardian in the 1990s and is currently Head of Public Value Research in BBC Research & Development.
Thompson will argue that digital media have created networked amateur or citizen journalists, some of whom have been perceived as a challenge to professional journalists. New media has also changed what journalists need to be able to do, such as to be able to communicate online, and even be more like an influencer, than an objective reporter. So, he will pose the question: What does it mean to be a professional journalist in the digital age?
Discussant: Dr Ingrid Aguiar Schlindwein, a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre.
2pm
Norms for Students of the Digital Age: From Calculators to ChatGPT
Moderator: Professor Jane Winters, Professor of Digital Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
What should students be permitted to use in the classroom and in their writing and other creative work? What norms should guide students and teachers in the classroom of the digital age? What will that classroom look like? How will students be judged and evaluated?
Panellists:
Dr Adam Budd, Senior Lecturer, Cultural History at The University of Edinburgh, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Secretary for Education and Chair of the Education Policy Committee at the Royal Historical Society.
Ravi Chagger earned his Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in 2006. Serving as an IT/Computer Science teacher at a secondary school, he took on the role of Head of Department, overseeing the delivery of various level 2 and level 3 qualifications. Ravi is dedicated to influencing positive outcomes for young learners.
Kieran Gilmurray, CEO of Kieran Gilmurray and Company, a globally recognised authority on AI, automation, and digital transformation. Kieran has authored two influential books and hundreds of articles that have shaped industry perspectives.
2.45pm Break
3pm
Paper Session from Multiple Disciplinary Perspectives
Chair: Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly, a Trustee of Archives of IT and emeritus professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick, where he specialises in the history of computing.
Vassilis Galanos – ‘Positionality of Norms’
Dr Vassilis Galanos, SFHEA is Lecturer in Digital Work at the University of Stirling. Vassilis investigates historico-sociological underpinnings of AI and internet technologies, and how expertise and expectations are negotiated in these domains.
Kate Bradley – Telephone helplines in Britain, 1965-1999: Countercultural DIY activism to professional welfare services over the phone
Kate is a Reader in Social History and Social Policy at the University of Kent, where she teaches and researches criminal justice and social policy history in Britain from the early 20th century to the present.
Patricia Esteve-González – Contextual Factors Shaping the Application of UN Cyber Norms, a Cybersecurity Capacity Study
Patricia is an Oxford Martin Fellow and a Senior Research Associate at the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre, University of Oxford, where she approaches research questions on cybersecurity from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Dr George Zoukas and Dr Jonathan Foster – Towards Assuring Data Fairness in Trustworthy Machine Learning
Dr Jonathan Foster is Senior Lecturer, Information School, University of Sheffield and Dr George Zoukas is Postdoctoral Research Associate, Information School, University of Sheffield.
3.50pm
Closing Remarks
William H Dutton, Trustee of the Archives of IT, was founding director of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), Oxford’s first Professor of Internet Studies. Currently, Bill is a Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford and Director of the Portulans Institute, Washington DC.
4pm-5pm
Refreshments and informal discussions
