TU Wien Informatics

20 Years

Why Computer Science matters

  • 2016-12-23
  • Public Outreach
  • Social Responsibility

Watch the whole panel discussion on Youtube! From December 13, 2016

Panelists, f.l.t.r. Carlo Ghezzi, Gerti Kappel, Hans Akkermans, Laura Kovacs, Tom Henzinger, Tanja Traxler
Panelists, f.l.t.r. Carlo Ghezzi, Gerti Kappel, Hans Akkermans, Laura Kovacs, Tom Henzinger, Tanja Traxler
Picture: TU Wien Informatics

During a panel discussion on December 13, national and international scientists reflected the societal role of Computer Science and tried to identify how its radical formative nature can be made more visible to public.

Boundaries of imperfect systems

“Informatics matters because our society relies on it in every step”, said Carlo Ghezzi (Politecnico di Milano) during his opening keynote. According to the computer scientist we live in a world where neither industries and health care systems nor transport or communication sectors are able to work without Informatics. „But the infrastructure is still fragile and open to hackers“, Ghezzi said. “There is a need for further research to make these systems less fragile”. Hans Akkermans (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) referred to a severe lack of understanding both in science and society: “Computer Science is no longer about a computer, but about large social and technical systems that expand and change. We simply do not have a good understanding about how they work”, Akkermans said.

Making Computer Science more visible

The discussion’s results showed several ways of how to confront the mentioned developments: Scientists need to make the acknowledgements of Computer Science more visible in public. Politicians also need to take further action in school education. In addition, Gerti Kappel, Laura Kovacs as well as Hannes Werthner from TU Wien emphasized the increasing responsibility of universities with regard to their societal and cultural role as well as their ability to self-reflect.

Take a glance at the teaser or watch the complete panel discussion on our Youtube channel!

Links

Curious about our other news? Subscribe to our news feed, calendar, or newsletter, or follow us on social media.

Note: This is one of the thousands of items we imported from the old website. We’re in the process of reviewing each and every one, but if you notice something strange about this particular one, please let us know. — Thanks!