Past Events

Speakers to include:

- Sue Omeroid - Nigel Wright – Recruitment – the current state of the IT industry on Teesside.

-Mike Harrison- Apperception technology solutions to assist service delivery organisations (fusion hive).

-Neil Southerby - Giraffe Solutions IT support and consultancy firm (fusion hive).

-Darren Winter - DucoDigital

https://bcsteesside_glassofit.eventbrite.co.uk

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Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

"Physics isn’t just about how things work and why; if you can achieve an A-Level in Physics, you demonstrate many more skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking and the ability to apply logic to any situation."

19 August 2016 Dr Charlotte Kemp, Clinical Scientist, Chartered Engineer and WISE Fellow, working in the Medical Physics Department at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough. She is one of four recipients of the first Chief Scientific Officer’s WISE Fellowship Programme for NHS England.

I am looking forward to reflecting on my career so far, networking with other women in STEM careers, and to utilizing the communication, personal development and leadership training that I will receive as part of the Fellowship to become a more succinct, engaging speaker and a more proficient leader.

I am excited about the opportunity to raise the profile of my profession and to reach out to young women as a role model and ambassador, with a particular aim to show how exciting, diverse and worthwhile a career in Medical Physics and Engineering can be and that it is possible to be driven, have a successful career and to be a mum as well!

If I can inspire one young woman to believe in themselves and see that they can pursue their goals in a STEM career when they may otherwise have shied away from reaching their potential, then I will consider my Fellowship to have been a success.

Charlotte Kemp

Download the poster for this event from here

Register your attendance here

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Hot on the trail of their final in Bristol back in February, we are proud to help students from Emmerson Batty Primary School, Redcar to showcase their winning ideas. They went through to the finals after attending an event at University of Teesside in January 2018. BCS Teesside Chair Andrew Simpson was a part of the judging panel.

FIRST® LEGO® League is a global science and technology challenge for teams of students, to encourage an interest in real world issues and develop key skills that are crucial for their future careers. The students work together to explore a given topic and to design, build and program an autonomous LEGO® robot to solve a series of missions.

FIRST® LEGO® League is for young people aged 9 to 16 years, working in teams of up to ten students with a supporting adult coach. Each year FIRST® LEGO® League releases a new challenge for the teams. The challenge involves a robot game and a research project, and students need to demonstrate the FIRST® LEGO® League core values throughout all their work.

Click here for the Poster

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Animex and ExpoTees are annual exhibitions of outstanding computing innovation, technology and design.

Animex was founded by Teesside University in 2000 with a view to creating a world-class inclusive festival that would draw some of the games and animation industries' brightest lights and future stars together to share their knowledge with the next generation.

This year, we have sponsored an award for Animex for the student with the best use of CGI in 3D animation.

ExpoTees is Teesside University’s annual exhibition of outstanding work from final year students from our School of Computing, Media & the Arts - and an opportunity to recruit bright, new talent to your organisation.

This year, shortlisted students from ExpoTees will present their projects at the Teesside & District branch BCS meeting. The presented projects that are judged to include the most innovative use or development of computer science or technology will win an Amazon Alexa Spot, which will be awarded at the ExpoTees awards ceremony on 18th of May.

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Unconscious bias affects us all. Whilst most people would say they’re open minded, due to our deep seated biases we unconsciously tend to like people who are similar to us, those who look like us and come from similar backgrounds; people who you can naturally relate to because they are like you. Unconscious bias is built into us as a survival mechanism, allowing us to process information quickly and make decisions when it comes to fight or flight. In that respect, it’s absolutely a positive trait.

However, in the business world unconscious bias can lead to decisions being made that are not fully considered. Research shows that diversity at the top level benefits organisations financially, encourages innovation and improves staff morale; however unconscious bias may lead people to recruit in their own image, thereby excluding different sets of behaviours and values that could otherwise benefit an organisation.

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is working to educate members of Boards and Committees in unconscious bias with the aim of changing cultures and attitudes and ultimately break down barriers to a more diverse leadership in our groups. Between November 2012 and September 2013, the Institute ran 11 Unconscious Bias workshops for members of centrally reporting Boards and Committees, training our volunteers about unconscious bias in all aspects of diversity; race, LBGT+Q, age, obesity, disability and gender.

The programme has now moved into a second phase and will be reaching out to our branch and specialist group network across the country. Through our membership of the Engineering Diversity Concordat, we have been awarded funding to develop these training materials as a transferable model for uptake by the other signatory professional bodies.

Booking Link

Contact: Andrew Simpson BSc MBCS RITTech (email)

LGBTQ+ in STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering & Maths): towards an algorithm for inclusion.

There has been considerable acknowledgement of the importance of diversity and inclusion in STEM professions over recent years; however, the number of visible LGBTQ+ scientists is still low, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering. This talk will consider possible reasons for this low representation, the specific challenges faced by LGBTQ+ scientists and engineers, and potential ways to address them. Most of all it aims to increase understanding of what it means to be an LGBTQ+ scientist.

Dr Robert Farley spent the more than a decade as an academic research chemist specialising in Electron Magnetic Resonance. He then retrained as a radiotherapy physicist and is now a Consultant Clinical Scientist and the Head of Medical Physics at the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is also the Director of the Professional and Standards Council and the LGBTQ+ Network Mentor at the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Booking Link

Download the sides from the presentation here

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

Speaker: Matthew Smith of Tilly, Bailey & Irvine law firm

With the implementation of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) fast approaching, TBI have produced a series of articles which will set out key elements of the new regulation in bite-size detail.

Matthew's specialisms include Business Matters, Commercial, Corporate and Intellectual Property.

Matthew is an Enterprise Advisor as part of the Tees Valley Combined Authority's Local Enterprise Partnership. He also assists the Esh Group in delivery of their Building My Skills programme and attends schools across the region to help deliver the various elements of their programme.

Booking Link

Download the poster

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Brian Deehan will be speaking about Computing in the Rediotherapy department, Brian is from Radiotherapy Physics department at South Tees Trust

Register for the event by clicking here

Contact: Andrew Simpson BSc MBCS RITTech (email)

Tony Pichford of BCS is going to present to us about IT & Digital Apprenticeships.

The BCS Digital IT Apprenticeship Standards (approved by the Department for Education (DfE) have been developed by employers from over 200 organisations, to cover major entry level roles into tech and digital careers. These Standards provide a robust quality programme of study, practical skills and competence. Tony advises on accreditation, end-point assessments and delivery for training providers looking to deliver IT and digital apprenticeship standards.

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Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Annual General Meeting and Presentation on the topic of Equality and Diversity in the Workplace.

Speaker: Theresa Carling of Tilly Bailey & Irvine LLP Theresa is an Associate Solicitor who has acted for organisations of all sizes and across all sectors from small owner-managed businesses through to large PLCs, local authorities, NHS Trusts, education establishments and charities over the last 16 years. She regularly: • Advises on employment aspects of restructures and TUPE transfers in organisations including academy conversions; • Prepares contractual documentation from director level to shop floor, as well as giving specific HR advice and advising generally on strategy helping organisations safely part company with employees where necessary; • Delivers fast, 'hands on' advice across the full range of HR and employment law issues with a heavy focus on commercial practicality (meaning I can forsee business impact.) • Advises senior executives in relation to their exits. • Plays an active role in the Tees Valley business community.

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Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Our normal committee meeting followed by a social media workshop. Joanna Wake is a multi-award winning entrepreneur in the digital skills arena. She heads up RAW Digital Training, a small company which trains businesses, organisations and industry talent in the vital digital skills that our economy needs, and features in the prestigious UK Digital Leaders 100 list 2016 and 2017.

Joanna is back with us again, talking to us about how to harness social media and Hootsuite for business advantage. Offering practical, interactive & hands-on advice delivering confidence, knowledge and skill to communicate with customers online.

Location is Digital House, 62 Dovecot Street, Stockton on Tees, TS18 1LL

Download the poster and stick it up at work!

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Kate Baucherel began her diverse career with an IBM business partner in the USA, and has held dual finance and tech roles in UK organisations from FTSE100 to startup across many sectors. An experienced accountant with a digital brain, she now consults with businesses using or developing emerging technologies.

Kate is a published author and writes, speaks and researches around issues in digital business, volunteering in non-profits, privacy, and cybersecurity. She also teaches at Teesside University Business School, represents Women in Tech in the region, is a Sage Business Expert, and was part of the Digital Leaders North East steering group.

Download the poster here

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Joanna Wake is a multi-award winning entrepreneur in the digital skills arena. She heads up RAW Digital Training, a small company which trains businesses, organisations and industry talent in the vital digital skills that our economy needs, and features in the prestigious UK Digital Leaders 100 list 2016 and 2017.

Joanna has trained and created digital skills courses, for thousands of businesses, from every sector, and is highly skilled in strategic marketing. She was recently highly commended for 'Innovator of the Year' at the world's biggest tech awards for women, the 2017 Women in IT Awards, and won ‘Best use of Innovation’ at the 2016 WIN Awards. She has big passions for Teesside, digital employment, and women in tech.

Download and promote the event with this poster

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

IoT: It’s impacts, opportunities and challenges. A summary of the government Digital Catapult study around the policy issues IoT raises for the UK eg privacy, dependency.

The BCS Green IT Specialist Group is taking forward an initiative to raise awareness of the Internet of Things and the issues this new technology raises. Last year we developed a demonstrator for the IoT using simple and cheap technologies including sensors and Arduino and Raspberry PI processors, typically available through retail outlets.

Bob CrooksChair of BCS Green IT Specialist Group and UK Cabinet Office’s Green ICT Deliver, y Unit

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

Thinking of getting chartered can seem daunting, but becoming Chartered IT Practitioner (CITP) can take you to a new level of recognition both with your peers and industry.

•This presentation will cover

• Why should you become Chartered (CITP)
• The application process
• Support available
• Next steps

Contact: Charlotte Hughes MBCS CITP (contact)

This event will be held in the café area in Stockton's Central library, Opposite Splash. We will encourage attendees to split up into groups and discuss some interesting topics in IT with their group to stimulate conversation and understanding around today's big IT issues.

There will be the usual food / drink provided for this open discussion around the concerns of modern day personal data sharing, The true cost of a free service, Stories about data theft and loss, headlines about companies selling data have left the public unwilling to share their information, is giving up your data is worth the reward and what will happen to my data when I die?

If you have an opinion on any of the above, come along and share it with the group and perhaps we can think of ways to make IT better for Society…Book Online

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

AGM and Presentation from David Bew - Introducing the Computer Conservation Society. David will talk about what the CCS does, the conservation projects, their computer heritage (which David has worked on), Software conservation and their website structure. David will be happy to answer questions on the subject.

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

This presentation will be a discussion and advice session around the benefits of MBCS and CITP and how to go through the application process. Margaret Ajibode who will be giving this presentation, is a chartered engineer (CEng FBCS CITP). She is the founder of Obatec, an IT consultancy business. She was elected to the BCS Membership committee in 2015 and is also a BCS assessor of CITP, CSci and CEng applications.

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

This will be a presentation in relation to internet securty in part targeted at parents.

The SSO (Safe and Secure Online) Parent presentation has 3 key concepts



1. Cybersecurity (teaching children computer safety)

2. Cyber Safety (teaching online behaviours to protect a child’s physical wellbeing)

3. Cyber Ethics (teaching children to treat others online as they would like to be treated.



The key learning outcomes of the presentation are

1. The Issues

2. How to spot them

3. How to teach your child to spot them

4. Appropriate responses

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

Garfield Southall from BCS HQ will be presenting this meeting on BCS Strategy.

Garfield Southall, FBCS, CITP, sits on BCS Membership Board and is Chair of BCS Best Practice Committee. Garfield’s presentation will be on the recently announced strategy of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

From a career perspective, Garfield has a background as a Software Analyst and Programmer (30+ years), who since 2011 he has been Associate Dean of Faculty of Science and Engineering at Chester University. His specialist areas include Biological Simulation in computers software, Software agents, Education using mobile devices as well as Emergent behaviour.

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

During this talk David Horn will give some background on the IoT, what it is, what some of the challenges are and of course, where me may find some solutions.

He will give examples including fridges, pacemakers and cars so it should be quite eclectic and keep everyone engaged.

There will be tea / coffee and sandwiches from 6.30pm with the talk starting as usual at 7pm.

Contact: Iain Brownlie BSc CEng MBCS (email)

Gillian Arnold, Chair of BCSWomen, Managing Director of Tectre, and WISE board member will discuss:

'The Business Benefits of Diversity and How to achieve them'

Increasingly research suggests that diverse teams are advantageous to business, in terms of financial and technical gain. How can companies access these benefits, and what do managers need to know to ensure that they can capitalise on them to the max.

Download Presentation

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

This event begins with a tour of the facilities available at the Fusion Hive building in Stockton-on-Tees and continues with a presentation from VisualSoft's David Duke giving insights into their business and future plans.

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

This meeting is our Annual General Meeting for the 2015/16 season and we have a presentation from one of our own members Iain Brownlie on his own experiences with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS).

Contact: Iain Brownlie BSc CEng MBCS (email)

Unconscious Bias considers the decisions that we make every day on an unconscious basis when it comes to what we think about others. This training session is open to committee members and any other interested BCS Member. The aim is to give you tools to recognise and handle unconscious bias whilst you are contributing to BCS Branch Committees and in your general day to day work.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

As open source evangelists and Drupal specialists, contributing to the future growth of Drupal as their company grows is a key aim for Consult and Design.

Managing Director, David Van der Velde will be speaking about growing a Drupal company from scratch here in the North East, what Drupal means to them and their clients, as well as the Drupal community in the region and beyond.

Consult and Design are one the UK’s leading experts in Drupal software, an open source framework used to build web sites and applications for some of the largest commercial, government and NGO organisations in the world. The Consult and Design philosophy is firmly rooted in an open approach to sharing knowledge and expertise.

Their company strapline is ‘Built with Knowledge’ and learning is integral to everything they do, their feeling...the more knowledge they share, the more our combined knowledge advances.

Drupal is a free, open-source web development platform for online content and user communities. Drupal powers some of the busiest sites on the web, and can be adapted to virtually any visual design. Drupal runs over a million sites, including WhiteHouse.gov, World Economic Forum, Stanford University, and Examiner.com.

Further details on Consult and Design can be found here http://www.consultanddesign.com/about

This event is free and open to the general public but we would appreciate if you register to help us with catering numbers. Register for this event using the following link https://events.bcs.org/book/1509/

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

Ian Graham from Durham Lane are giving a presentation on techniques to improve your technology sales. For some more information about this head over to their website Sales Mantras

Please book for this meeting if you wish to attend by the following link https://events.bcs.org/book/1489/ - View the presentation notes Here

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

Topic to be confirmed

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

This month we are using our March meeting to invite members to the launch of the Digital Catapult Centre North East & Tees Valley event in Sunderland.

At the event Sunderland Software city will explain their vision and plans for the next three years and how two Local Enterprise Partnerships, five universities and the Digital Catapult will be working together to strengthen the region’s economy

The Centre will be opened by Andy Green, chairman of IG Group, NP Group, and DockOn Inc. Andy is a non-executive director on the Board of ARM Holdings plc, the world's leading microprocessor IP company. Until 2012, Andy was CEO of Logica plc. Prior to joining Logica, Andy was a member of the Board at BT plc and CEO of Group Strategy and Operations. During his 21 years at BT, Andy held several senior positions, including that of CEO BT Openworld, where he launched Broadband into the UK market.

If you are planning to attend you need to register using the link below.

REGISTER

Drinks and Canapes will be provided

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

Wikimedia projects drive one of the world's most popular websites, Wikipedia, and aim "to bring about a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." What does this mean for the way we produce and share knowledge in an emergent information-rich culture? In a wider sense, how does this idea of 'social' machines' (of which Wikipedia is considered one), currently being explored in the SOCIAM project, affect the way we design and construct software systems now?

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

Iain will be giving a presentation entitled Safety Critical Systems in the Process Industries where he will be considering the following topics

Contact: Urfan Ali (email)

Annual Ceneral Meeting of the Branch

We start to meet around 18:30 for refreshments and a buffet and the AGM will kick-off around 19:00.

We're also looking for ideas for the next year, volunteers to join the committee and possible speakers for the next year. Minutes of the meeting and Presentation

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

An evening of discussion - A talk on embedded Systems followed by socialising. Bring your latest Raspberry Pi or Arduino project, or Christmas Present and find out what more you can do, swap code, collect code, learn what a target system really is !!!!

Social evening - with a purpose ! We have a need to organise the branch for next year, and with some of our members retiring from their posts we badly need new blood to reinvigorate the committee. Come and have a bite to eat, tell us about what you'd like to see us do, and volunteer !!! 6-30 for 7-00 Parmore Hotel, Yarm Road, Stockton.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Iain Brownlie has a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from Edinburgh University and worked with Logica and RCA Systems Ltd for 5 years before joining ICI Engineering Department in 1985 where he worked on various ICI plants in the UK and abroad.

He transferred into the ICI Eutech Engineering Services business in 1995 which was subsequently purchased by ABB in 2001. Over the past 30 years, Iain has been involved in a range of automation and control projects primarily in the Chemical and Petrochemical Sectors. In recent years, Iain has been the System Manager for a number of computer systems dealing with the Ethylene Pipelines operated by SABIC UK Petrochemicals covering the SCADA, Leak Detection and Geographical Information Systems.

Iain is a member of the British Computer Society and is a Chartered Engineer (CEng, CITP) with certifications in both functional safety (FSEng) and security (CISSP) and now works as a Senior Consultant in the Safety Solution Group within ABB Consulting.



Iain will be giving a presentation entitled Cyber Security in Industrial Applications where he will be considering the following topics

• What do industrial control systems look like
• What are the associated risks
• Converging requirements for safety and security
• How are control system vendors responding to security threat

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

This talk covers the Turing machine paper up to Turing's involvement in the first commercial computers - principally the Ferranti Mark 1.

David, by his own admission finds, users are very good at knowing what they want! He has over 15 years familiarity with providing for users needs in the Police environment but before that he worked on virtual store and also hardware management for the VME 2900/3900 OS kernel in ICL Manchester.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Alan is a Chartered Engineer and IT Professional and a member of the BCS Open Source Specialist Group, his background is in Production Engineering and Computerised Machinery.

His career has involved working at senior level in small and medium sized businesses, national and multinationals, national and local government, and academia.

The talk is intended to promote the use of Open Source in business situations particularly those associated with Engineering.

Coffee and Food provided. Free stuff available !!

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Possible trip to the Telescope at Wynyard Woodland Park

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Annual General Meeting of the Teesside and District Branch.

Angus Marshall will be talking about current developments in regulation and ISO standards for digital forensics and digital investigations. Based on his roles as a member of the FSR's working group on digital evidence and as "UK Principal Expert on Digital Evidence" to ISO/IEC JTC1 SC27 and editor/co-editor of some of the standards (including eDiscovery), he will go through the drivers behind the production of the various standards and regimes. Download the slides

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Chris Masey - Head of IT Recruitment

Chris is an established IT Consultant and Manager with over 7 years career experience. Recruiting from the ground up to CIO level, Chris has a large client and candidate network spanning the Yorkshire and North East regions.

With several exclusive SME recruitment partnerships, Chris has also delivered major volume campaigns for the likes of Santander, William Hill and Orchard, designing sourcing and research strategies to recruit the best technical skills available on the market.

Dedicated to exceptional customer service, Chris remains totally hands-on in all his recruitment assignments, and is accountable for the successful day to day management of the NRG IT delivery team.

Chris is educated to degree level and holds a BSc Honours Degree in Business and Finance Economics from the University of Leeds.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Darren Stephens originally wanted to be a physicist, but in the early 1990s discovered computers and the internet instead. After working in several IT roles, including for an Internet Service Provider, he moved to the University of Hull's Scarborough Campus, where he was a member of the original teaching team on one of the first specialist Internet Computing degrees in the UK. He still works in Scarborough, lecturing in the School of Arts and New Media, where he still specialises in web-based systems.

His original research interest was in the applicability of software metrics in measuring the quality of web-based systems. Recently though, he has become involved in research involving digital archiving and curation, especially related to the Malta Music Memory Project, of which he is part.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

What’s new in SharePoint 2013?
Alex Bookless | Portals and Collaboration Specialist

Alex Bookless takes a look at the new features which SharePoint 2013 provides, including:
• The new look and feel
• Collaboration improvements
• Collaborating using SharePoint 2013 on a mobile device
• SharePoint App Store(s)
• Improvements to web content management features
• What’s new in search?
• Social improvements

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

People used to think that it is impossible to find the square root of negative numbers, until the square root of minus one was defined to be a number, such that the ordinary operations of arithmetic apply to a new set of imaginary or complex numbers. The same mathematical trick worked for numbers plus one, minus one, and zero divided by zero. Now it is possible to divide any real or complex number by zero. This brings many benefits to computing. Three of which are that the new arithmetic doubles the range of real numbers that can be described by IEEE floating-point bits, thereby doubling the “accuracy” of iterative functions that are computed to a tolerance. Secondly, that any Turing computable function can be laid out as a pipeline so that practical programs, executing on massively pipelined machines, terminate once per clock tick. Thirdly, that any syntactically correct Turing program is semantically correct (in as much as it does not terminate on an exception). Come to the talk, learn how to divide by zero, and learn what division by zero can do for you.

Dr James Anderson is a lecturer in Computer Science at Reading University. He worked on computer language standardisation for the BSI and is currently Chair of Berkshire BCS. He invented the transarithmetics which allow division by zero and has developed computer architectures to exploit them, including trans versions of two’s complement and floating-point arithmetic. Dr Anderson currently teaches discrete mathematics and compiler theory and practice.

James will update us on the quest to use his technology to build a massively parallel computing system.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Sean Cull is one of 65 global IBM Champions for what was traditionally known as IBM Lotus but is now known as IBM Collaboration Solutions.

He started an IT consultancy in 2000 following 10 years as a Manufacturing Engineer in industry where he became increasingly frustrated by time that he and his team wasted on paperwork. At the time he though he knew how to do IT.

Some 12 years own he now understands he actually knew very little about IT and still has a lot to learn. Despite this FoCul has become a successful consultancy specialising in workflow and collaboration solutions for Engineers and the manufacturing sector.

Sean will talk about how his views and experience have changed on the journey from being a disgruntled customer to being an IT provider. He will also show examples of the kinds of collaboration solutions that have worked well for users in industry and discuss how Lotus Notes applications can now be converted into modern browser based applications. One of his examples will be this ABB Lotus Notes example from Teesside - http://prime-toolkit.com/demo

Sean will also discuss how IBM is increasingly shifting its focus to Social Business Solutions which, despite their unfortunate name, do look set to become the future of collaborative solutions in the workplace. http://www.linkedin.com/in/seancull

http://seancull.co.uk

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Please do think about becoming more involved in your local branch of the BCS as we would welcome new faces to the committee.

It is also an opportunity for people to network and provide suggestions for future events - remember the branch is there for all and we do appreciate feedback and suggestions from our members.

There will be light refreshments and a small buffet.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Andrew Westgarth is Co-founder of North East Bytes, a free User Group covering the North East and Cumbrian regions of the United Kingdom having technical meetings covering Development and IT Pro topics every month. He is a Technical Architect at Sage (UK) Ltd working on large scale cloud and web applications. Andrew is very active in the UK Developer Community, attending and speaking at multiple events, supporting users and other User Groups. In the past he has spoken at the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference, VBUG's National Two Day Conference; Developer Developer Developer Day 5 and local User Group meetings. Andrew has experience in VB6/.NET; C#; ASP.NET and Internet Information Services. Andrew's current technical interests include IIS 8.0/7.5/7.0, IIS Extensions and Windows Azure; Personal Performance Improvement and Best Practices. View the slides here

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Speakers are Saeed Iqbal, Learning & Education Coordinater (EMTEP) and Jacqueline Harvey, Barclays Business Manager.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Senior Consultant Dave Hooper will discuss the characteristics typical of an “intelligent business”; a well-controlled and well-understood organisation able to measure its performance based on factual evidence and base business decisions on sound performance indicators. Dave will then explain the best approach for extracting the data you need from your existing systems and how to fill in the gaps and inconsistencies that inevitably arise. After covering how to process the data he will address how the information should be presented to business users and which technologies are appropriate to their varied needs.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

George Hewitt, Consultant: Infrastructure Technology Sometimes seen as unfashionable and low priority for investment, backups are still a critical part of any IT infrastructure. They will enable a business to restore everything from a single email item, right up to an entire server as part of a disaster recovery scenario. The quantity – and criticality – of business data has increased dramatically in recent years, and so the question still remains: how can this data be backed up effectively to enable an efficient restore in times of need? George will look at the design of a reliable backup infrastructure and some of the technologies that can be employed to decrease the impact of any need for recovery on a business.

Download the slides for this presentation from here.

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Chris Massey, IT Recruitment Manager from Northern Recruitment Group will talk about the current state of the IT Recruitment Market. He will provide an inside view of the recruitment of staff, for employers, and also how to go about a job search effectively for those members seeking a new role. Hopefully he will have some effective tips and tricks to ease the process which should be useful to all members.

Northern Recruitment Group (NRG) has been operating for 35 years and now has 120 staff with it's Head Office in Newcastle and regional offices in York and Teesside. It has the largest IT Delivery recruitment team in the North East. It covers both temporary and permanent staff and recruits on regional as well as national projects - often delivering multi-site client projects throughout the UK

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

The consumerisation of IT remains a hot topic for IT departments. This is primarily due to the growing popularity of products such as the Apple iPad and Smartphones. So how secure are these consumer-focused technologies, why are they increasingly pushing their way into the work environment, and what impact are they having ?

David is the Sales Director for Sapphire, one of the leading, forward thinking, dynamic and independent IT security consultancies in the U.K where he has been in a variety of roles since April 2002.

He has a Sales and Commercial Management background since 1992 holding a variety of positions along the way.

His particular experience includes managing, driving and motivating sales teams as well as general business improvement including, but not limited to internal processes and procedures

His specialist area is IT/IS security from both a commercial and technical perspective.

As well as having a good technical grasp of the main technologies in this field, he is also very conversant with computer forensics and is regularly invited to speak on the subject at seminars and events.

Outside of the product arena, he is also fully familiar with Penetration Testing/Vulnerability Assessments, Computer Forensics, PCI and also ISO/IEC 27001. These specialist services now form the cornerstone of the vast majority of his trusted partnership client relationships

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Annual General Meeting for 2011/12. Light refreshments will be available from 6.30 and the AGM should start around 7pm. This is an opportunity to have your say on the direction the branch will take next year and meet fellow members. We hope you’ll come along if at all possible and look forward to seeing you there.

Parking just around the corner right in the middle of Darlington which is free after 6pm.

We’ll be on the top floor, for those who need it there is a lift to access the top floor if necessary. Download the minutes

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Annual General Meeting for 2010/11. Light refreshments will be available from 6.30 and the AGM should start around 7pm. This is an opportunity to have your say on the direction the branch will take next year and meet fellow members. We hope you’ll come along if at all possible and look forward to seeing you there.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Meeting to be confirmed

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

The February event is a visit to the School of Science and Technology at the University of Teesside. Members will have the opportunity to see some of the uses of computing in modern engineering activities, an area which has grown enormously over recently years. Computer Aided Engineering has grown from replacing drawing boards to three dimensional modelling and full blown analysis tools. The use of Computer Aided Manufacture, Robotics, and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems also figure strongly in the Engineer's arsenal.

The meeting will start with refreshments in the foyer of the Stephenson Building ( http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/docrepo/about/CampusMap.pdf ) in School of Science and Engineering at 6-30 pm on Wednesday 2nd February 2011. Car Parking will be available in The Quadrangle P6 on this map http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/docrepo/about/CampusCarParkMap.pdf .

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Dr James Anderson BSc, PhD, MBCS, CITP, CSci.
People used to think that it is impossible to find the square root of negative numbers, until the square root of minus one was defined to be a number, such that the ordinary operations of arithmetic apply to a new set of imaginary or complex numbers. The same mathematical trick worked for numbers plus one, minus one, and zero divided by zero. Now it is possible to divide any real or complex number by zero. This brings many benefits to computing. Three of which are that the new arithmetic doubles the range of real numbers that can be described by IEEE floating-point bits, thereby doubling the “accuracy” of iterative functions that are computed to a tolerance. Secondly, that any Turing computable function can be laid out as a pipeline so that practical programs, executing on massively pipelined machines, terminate once per clock tick. Thirdly, that any syntactically correct Turing program is semantically correct (in as much as it does not terminate on an exception). Come to the talk, learn how to divide by zero, and learn what division by zero can do for you. Dr James Anderson is a lecturer in Computer Science at Reading University. He worked on computer language standardisation for the BSI and is currently Chair of Berkshire BCS. He invented the transarithmetics which allow division by zero and has developed computer architectures to exploit them, including trans versions of two’s complement and floating-point arithmetic. Dr Anderson currently teaches discrete mathematics and compiler theory and practice.

Download slides from the presentation

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

This evening we have a talk on ‘Computer Forensics’ by David Horn (Sapphire). This will be in the Boardroom of Darlington Football Ground. Download Flier Download the slides from this presentation

Contact: Akram El Gabry (email)

Annual General Meeting for 2009/10. Light refreshments will be available from 6.30 and the AGM should start around 7pm. This is an opportunity to have your say on the direction the branch will take next year and meet fellow members. We hope you’ll come along if at all possible and look forward to seeing you there.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Contact: Peter Phillips (email)

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Vicky Rushin is a Senior Lecturer at Teesside University who teaches and researches the area of Emerging Technologies. As a result of her interest in the topic she frequently attends schools and colleges to talk on the subject. She recently organized the area finals of the Lego Robotics competition which involved 20 local schools competing for the right to attend the national finals and ultimately the chance to compete in the USA for the International Robotic championships

Contact: Peter Phillips (email)

Mark Kozak-Holland from the USA will be out guest speaker at the launch of the Darlington BCS st the prestigious Blackwell Grange Hotel. See www.lessons-from-history.com for a flavour of the evening.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Ms Joanne Noble has extensive experience in software commissioning and delivery is our speaker at the Roker Park Hotel on Oct. 15. Her topic will be her experience of the delivery of a Web site for a large organizaton and her research into a tool/approach that would help avoid some of the problems typically encountered.

Contact: Alan Shaw (contact)

Annual General Meeting for 2008/9. Download the presentation here.

Contact: David Fuller (email)

This will be a round table discussion podcasted in realtime with feedback from listeners

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

This will be a visit to Cleveland Police site at Ladgate Lane. For Maps click here…Large Scale and Close up

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

IT Infrastructure with Open Source and the Business Services Initiative Download the slides

Contact: Craig Bates (contact)

Discussions around open source web services. Dave Fuller gave an extensive presentation using JBOSS, Download Dave's Slides. Alan Jones gave a presentation of ActiveVOS BPEL Eclipse. Download Alan's Slides

Contact: David Fuller (email)

A discussion around security when using open source software

Download Notes | Download Slides

Contact: Simon Boardman (email)

Presentation by David Binns on open source products and open office.
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Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

Nick Poulten IT Delivery Programme Manager for Disclosure Scotland & Joe Carroll Business Architect for the Criminal Justice Market Sector within BT are giving a presentation on the use of RUP for software delivery. They will talk about the common problems that occur during software delivery projects, the differences between a waterfall and an iterative lifecycle, give an overview of the Rational Unified Process and examine how an iterative lifecycle and the RUP can help avoid the common problems experienced with software development. Download agenda

Contact: David Fuller (email)

British Computer Society (Teesside and District) is currently celebrating it’s 50th Birthday year with the theme ‘Globalisation’.

On 16th April, Craig Bates who owns an IT services business in the North East will be speaking about his experiences of Globalisation insofar as it impacts on his business and customers.

He will look at the drivers that are propelling a global market, as well as covering topics including the decision to outsource, negotiations and integration with traditional business models. He will also cover the technology that allows this to be possible, as well as it's limitations, and draw conclusions about globalisation ‘on the ground’.

The event starts at 1830 with refreshments and the presentation will be 7 - 8pm. All members are invited, as well as guests and general members of the interested public.

Contact: Claire Donlan (contact)

Speaker Ian Laws, Production Manager. Starts at 18:30.
CLICK HERE FOR A MAP TO THE PRINT WORKS

Members must register with Alan Jones via email to attend this event as we need to keep track of numbers.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

The talk will provide an overview of emerging markets together with a personal view of Phil Eadon, Chairman of www.partners4technology.com , on the cultural differences and how to negotiate business with natives of foreign climes, not forgetting that we are the foreigners to customers in these countries. Phil will be joined by P4T member John Dobie who runs INTERFOS UK Ltd (Partners for technology) and has considerable experience in emerging markets such as Nigeria, China and most recently South America. John was also a delegate at INTERTECH China 2007 and is the Chairman of the North East International Exporters Club.

The rise of the middle class in India and China offers traders in the north east the opportunity to reach new markets. Internet technologies are the means by which the path to these customers can be made smooth and profitable, and can connect sales nous in UK with overseas suppliers who do the legwork.

Download the slides from this presentation here

Contact: Simon Boardman (email)

Speakers British Telecom and Mr Cajetan Mbama, researcher.

In what is expected to be a popular event, Cajetan Mbama will cover what is VOIP, how it works, why use it and what are the benefits, followed by issues affecting deployment, with insights into environmental impacts such as convergence, security and regulation.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

Graham Evans (Director of Human Resources and Information at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust and Chairman of the BCS Teesside and District Branch) will provide some background on how Telemedicine technology has evolved to facilitate the delivery of clinical care, along with a discussion on its practical uses, issues affecting the patient and the benefits within a modern health service.

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

Speakers Andrew Lumley, Simon Boardman, Claire Donlan and Craig Bates.

Over the last decade mobile computing has become an important, growing and productive part of the information infrastructure of the modern enterprise. Mobile computing has evolved with improved network connectivity and a blend of devices to enable continuous access to network services, high data portability and performance, improved presentation, and a general sense of usefulness. With innovation, freedom and flexibility, however, comes great risk of theft and loss. Mobile devices have become walking treasure troves.

Download presentation notes

Contact: Andrew Lumley (contact)

Our guest will be Alastair Waite, CEO of Onyx Internet plc, and a serial entrepreneur, who will describe to members some of the professional turning-points in his career so far.

A bar will be available.

The Parkmore Hotel is at 636 Yarm Road (the very old A19 route south), postcode TS16 0DH. We very much wish to see you there on the night. Download Minutes

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

Derek Harding will talk about using electronic teaching methods from a national perspective in his role as a researcher, teacher and author about history. Eileen Webb will present how electronic methods are used within Teesside University.

Dr. Eileen Webb is an experienced academic practitioner and researcher on novel electronic methods to support teaching at University level and will talk about how electronic methods are used within Teesside University.

The motivation to use electronic support is complex to manage and direct. There are many factors, not least student expectations. Using electronic support often requires more effort from both the teacher and the learner. Recent developments will be outlined and the speakers will present examples of the technology in Action.

Derek will start at 7pm, and Eileen will be 2nd about 7.40.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

The next lecture in our Public and Professorial lecture series is by Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer on Wednesday 14th March at 6.30pm in the Centuria Building. Sir Liam is also a recent honorary graduate of the University and will be speaking on "Safety in healthcare: today’s challenge". This particular lecture is proving extremely popular but, as always, a number of seats are made available to the University community and may be requested by email. The Vice-Chancellor hopes that a number of colleagues will join him at what will be a fascinating and timely lecture.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

James Cook University Hospital give a parctical demonstration of the hospital at night service. This service is used to coordinate the activity of the Doctors during the evening and over night by use of hand held PCs and a call logging service. Doctors can be assigned jobs within the hospital and can record and respond to those jobs using the hand held PC. The system has proved very successful not only for coordinating the Doctors but for collection invaluable statistics about the length and types of planned and unplanned incidents. We will see it in action tonight. For more information on this system visit http://www.ibleep.net/

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

This will be an overview of Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 from a technical level and also a discussion around OpenSource including Jboss and various open source database / programming constructs around the J2EE environment and Application Server architecture.

Contact: David Fuller (email)

Members are invited to a rare treat this Wednesday. First, a very senior and widely experienced colleague from BCS will talk to members about the revitalised focus within BCS on member services.

And the ever-rushing Internet provides material for our Innovation series – Home Automation.

The Intelligent Home will have architecture based on Ipv6 – Internet Protocol version 6. This version has a vastly-increased name space, so not only can your central heating have a URL address, so can the motor that operates the cat flap. Many colleagues understand the engineer’s response to the problem of global warming and energy reduction – technology.

The day of the Intelligent Home has arrived, and the good news is you can retrofit it into your existing house. This is what programmers call ‘reuseability’ – wonderful. Our guest speaker is Alan Shaw, senior academic in Teesside’s School of Science and Engineering.

We look forward to an exciting evening. 6.30 for 7, Wenesday Nov 8, at the School of Computing, Teesside University. TS1 3BA. Contact alan.jones@tees.ac.uk with any questions.

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

Technology on the move will be a discussion of the advances in wireless and mobile working.

Contact: Adrian Beckham (contact)

This is the Annual General Meeting and will be held at the University of Teesside. The usual arrangements, 6.30pm for 7. The guest speaker is Stuart Bruce of Bruce Marshall associates who will be speaking on the subject of blogging. Hope to see you there

Contact: Adrian Beckham (contact)

Next BCS meeting is Wednesday 22 March. Visitors and non-members are welcome. We will have two presentations of Microsoft’s SharePoint. Start at 1830 with refreshments in the Europa Foyer (entry from Woodlands Road, TS1 3BA); the main meeting begins 1900 until 2030. Venue is the Europa Building theatre OL1, adjacent to the foyer.

The product to be presented on this evening will again show how IT is fulfilling its promise as the 5th revolution (after canals, rail, electricity and the internal combustion engine).

Neil Walker from Capture Projects will speak on both sessions on March 22.

In the first slot he will present case studies of Sharepoint’s application. The second slot will be of a more technical nature, with demonstrations of SharePoint’s technology.

Sharepoint is often linked with Infopath. InfoPath is about forms, and presenting information on-screen. Sharepoint is about the control and secure distribution of information (that may subsequently be presented in forms).

These technologies offer productivity for developers and scalability for customers, with added benefit of secure Internet presentation which means some of your documents can be opened up to clients and customers.

The ‘secure’ approach allows this selectivity of what can be seen.

These technologies are a powerful way of creating communities—for commerce, education, B2B, decision-making, problem-solving, sport, clubs and charitable groups.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

7pm Dave Renn, Stockton Borough Council.

The e-government revolution is firmly upon us, challenging central and local government to improve efficiency, streamline processes and share data better. This is well exemplified by the range of interactive geographical services now available via the Web. David Renn, Geographical Information System (GIS) Manager, and member of Local Government Geographical Information Committee (LoGGIC) will describe and demonstrate some of the ways in which GIS is helping to meet the e-government agenda. Services will include reporting problems, advising of local activities, informing of street works and winter maintenance routes, managing the planning process and identifying school catchment areas..

7.30pm Paul Massey, Ian Elcoate and Ria Pozoukidou, University of Teesside.

Research in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at Teesside University has been the special interest of Paul Massey since his involvement, some time ago, with the Cleveland Forest project. No, this wasn't about the location of badger nests but more prosaically how the finished forest would appear if certain mixes of trees were planted. This was a kind of visual 'what-if' scenario generator. Paul and 2 of his research students (Ian Elcoate and Ria Pozoukidou) will describe and demonstrate two contrasting GIS applications. Ian's project is concerned with location/personal tracking and GPS and is a development of a project supported originally by the Ordnance Survey. Ria's project is concerned with a client in the Primary Care Trust and is concerned with resource planning and integrating data mining with GIS.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

Benjamin Mitchell http://benjaminm.net/ is currently working as a Program Manager with Kalido Limited. Previously he's worked as a consultant helping some of the UK's largest banks implement web services security and build enterprise applications. Having spent many years working on some of the largest websites in Australia he has come to London to experience bigger challenges. He is passionate about improving development practices through extreme programming and making the web easier to use for applications through web services.

We live in the year that sees the start of IT's expansion to be the core business platform of the world. This year, and the products to be presented this evening, shows how IT will fulfill its promise as the 5 th revolution (after canals, rail, electricity and the internal combustion engine). Each previous revolution changed forever the way the world worked. This 5th revolution will do the same. Benjamin will show glimpses of the future with new Microsoft products SQLServer 2005 (the database), Visual Studio 2005 (the development environment), and BizTalk 2006 (the integration platform).

This is the way the MS is targeting exploitation of web services standards for interoperability and business communication ( www.w3.org/ ) and the semantic web that enables all this (http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html ).

BCS Teesside and District will gladly welcome attendance from all interested - non-members are welcome.

We will offer some refreshments at 1830, ahead of the lecture which is planned to start at 7pm until 7.50pm, with questions and answers to follow until 8.30pm.The Venue is Teesside University, and when we have an idea of numbers we will get a hall to suit.

We look forward to welcoming you to a view of the new Microsoft products that are arguably the most significant product launches for low-cost, effective business integration ever, and exploit the Internet in ways previously unforeseen and unimaginable.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)

This presentation will compare the benefits and pitfalls of the java development platform vs. the .net platform.

Contact: David Fuller (email)

Theme of the evening will be "Communications" and will include an interactive demonstration of Videoconferencing systems over both ISDN and IP communications channels.

The host will be Graham Evans, Director of IM&T for North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust/Co-Chairman of the Teesside and District branch.

Guest speaker will be Mr Ian Carter - Managing Director of Videonations in Manchester who will present "Live from Manchester", this will be followed by a local demonstrations of Videoconference systems in use within the trust by the host.

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

7.00 Dave Binns, DBRA UK Ltd, “ITIL — the Information Technology Infrastructure Library.” Dave will describe the utility of the ITL as an audit device and ready management system.

7.30 The Teesside and District Branch AGM.

Contact: David Binns BSc MSc MBCS CITP (email)

7.00 Gary Askew, IT Security Consultant, Durham “Network Security Management”. Gary will outline the national NHS approach.

7.30 Stuart Norman, professional IT specialist, York “Computer Systems Validation”. Stuart will outline usability aspects including GUI and ROI measures.

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

7pm - Graham Evans presents an NHS Trust approach to working with the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT)

7.30pm - Ian Simpson gives a talk on Professional CVs and Interview practice including How many CV's should you have? The importance of personal networks, Interview preparation. Also Ian shows us how to identify a good agency help them work for you. He will provide some useful resources as part of his presentation

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

A talk by Jon Jagger, an independent trainer/designer/consultant. You are invited to the Carriage pub (old Jesmond Station) after each event.

Contact: Alan White (contact)

An open-source Java engine for evaluating Xpath expressions. A talk by Romilly Cocking, an independent consultant and trainer. You are invited to the Carriage pub (old Jesmond Station) after each event.

Contact: Alan White (contact)

This is the teesside branch re-launch event. See further detail

Contact: Graham Evans (email)

Bringing Class Diagrams to the Java Browser's Toolset. You are invited to the Carriage pub (old Jesmond Station) after each event A talk by Paul Wells, a software engineering consultant

Contact: Alan White (contact)

Meeting to discuss pending changes to the committee and the future of the Teesside Branch. If you have any input please feel free to contact us.

Contact: Charles Marshall (contact)

AGM for 2004.

Contact: Alan Jones (email)