ITEE College Chair

Choosing among options

Recently I assisted a client in a project which demonstrated opportunities of technology to deliver education using broadband networks.  The trial was a great success from a student engagement perspective and for appreciation of the learning experience in the technical environment used.  In fact the trial encouraged further exploration of the use of the technology and, with the prospect of continued success, medium term expectation of more widespread deployment.  The work did however raise the question in my mind as to whether the resources used to deliver those outcomes might have been better focused elsewhere in terms of national educational/economic impact.  

Typically technology has a solution to most envisaged challenges, we face the particular challenge to identify where to best focus resources (time, people and dollars) to generate the best value outcome (by appropriate comparative measures).  Ubiquitous and affordable broadband opens up an immense array of opportunity and choice including in education.  Individual’s resources are limited so how are those choices made?  Ironically the availability of ubiquitous and affordable broadband, which depends so much on engineers to create, may itself be putting further pressure on engineering resource supply simply by providing further opportunities for students to study subjects other than science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). 

Engineers must promote the use of technology to increase the proportion of students taking on STEM subjects, it won’t be done for us.  Engineers need to help students in assessing the value of pursuing STEM subjects and to assist educators to devise ways of using broadband to help make those subjects more appealing.  Technology now delivers a plethora of options for students and they will increasingly need help in making choices and if we don’t influence this can we be surprised if the apparent fall in the proportion of students taking STEM courses continues?

 I take this opportunity to wish all members of the ITEE College a healthy and prosperous 2012. 

This column also appears in the ITEE College Board Chair blog http://engineersaustralia.typepad.com/itee_college_chair/ : please post your feedback.

 Peter Hitchiner FIEAust CPEng, Engineers Australia, ITEE College Chair 2011 / 2013

Report on ITEE College Board Meeting November 2011

The College Board met in Perth on 17 and 18 November. The following outcomes are reported for the information of College members:

• Representation on the College Board is now active from all Divisions except Newcastle with new representation from Tasmania and Northern Divisions and continuing representation from other Divisions. The Board also agreed to improve communication with other bodies with corresponding membership from EA’s National Committee on Transport Engineering (to facilitate engagement on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)) and the Australian Council of Deans of ICT (the Board already includes representation from Australian Council of Engineering Deans).

• A Board committee was established to review the National Committee on Software Engineering including effectiveness and purpose: any College member wishing to provide comments may do so through the ITEE College Chair blog.

• The Board noted that the next Australian Software Engineering Conference will be held in 2013 after a hiatus of 2 years. Plans for EA participation as a sponsor in Radar 2013 and in the Australian Symposium on Antennas (also 2013) are being advanced. EA’s involvement in the recent Asia Pacific Microwave Conference in Melbourne is very positive in providing visibility for EA in the ITEE disciplines and is responsive to the need for EA to provide information and professional opportunities for its members. Plans are underway for EA sponsorship of two ITS conferences. The College Board is keen to ensure engagement of local groups with conferences held in their locality however this doesn’t seem to be occurring very effectively. The Board representatives will endeavour to facilitate such opportunities. Conferences provide an important opportunity for eminent speakers to make presentations to College members during their visit.

• The ITEE College Board has been considering various initiatives to encourage papers for the Australian Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering on topics falling within the ITEE discipline. If more interest can be generated it may be possible to initiate additional (specialised) Journal titles. It is likely that such initiatives will involve largely electronic publication for members. • A three year forward program of Eminent Speakers is being planned. Plans are now being developed for Dr Trevor Bird, recently retired as Chief Scientist at CSIRO’s ICT Centre, to undertake our next Eminent Speaker program during 2012.

• The College Board has been asked to assist in the development of guidelines to assist candidates and interviewers for Stage 2 (chartered) Competency for ITEE discipline. This work will be undertaken over the next few months

• The number of nominations for the IREE Neville Thiele Award continues to disappoint and steps to improve the dissemination of information about the award will be taken.

• A second award to be funded by the IREE Foundation is being proposed with a much broader set of eligibility criteria.

• The Board is taking steps to improve the ability to communicate with and support member information needs though development of the ITEE College web pages.

• The Board commenced a review its operational plan for 2012/13.

If you have any input or feedback on these matters please visit the College Chair’s Blog http://engineersaustralia.typepad.com/itee_college_chair/

Addressing College Member needs

College Board chairs were reminded at a recent meeting that the member survey conducted in 2010 by Beaton indicated that membership should receive, among other things:

• support for the development of knowledge and skills
• provision of access to information
• the sense of belonging to a community
• the standing of the member being enhanced
• regularly being kept up to date

I expect that ITEE College members have similar needs and hopefully they are being met at least in part.  The College Board meets in mid November and if you have any comments or suggestions about what can be done better please let your representative know or provide feedback to the blog link below. In any case the ITEE College Board will be working to improve performance in all these areas in the interests of College members.  The larger we can build our community the greater our ability to address these needs.  Unfortunately our College membership currently represents only a small portion of the ITEE community.  It is a matter of some disappointment for instance that we seem to offer nothing for the Broadcasting Engineer who were so well served by our predecessor organisation, IREE. The pervasiveness of ICT means that ICT practitioners do not always associate themselves with ITEE because their work is directed within another discipline.  This may also reduce the apparent significance of ICT practice in the economy as a whole.  This challenge impacts the funding of ICT course in Universities where the classification of ICT work under other disciplines may be leading to a reduction in overall funding for ICT courses.    

With the increasing importance of the “digital economy” (including health, education and security sectors with the convergence of art, entertainment and culture through digital media) engineering skills development in the ITEE practice area is becoming increasingly important whereas it seems that skills supply is set to diminish.  As a community we should be working to reverse this trend and promote careers and skills development increasingly in ITEE practice and with the necessary levels of competency.  The ITEE College Board has a responsibility to provide leadership in this area and is doing so but needs support across the ITEE community.  There are opportunities to serve your profession through your local ITEE community which will be strengthened as more participate and we can then better meet College member needs.

Peter Hitchiner FIEAust, CPEng

Chair ITEE College Board

eHealth

It’s perhaps unsurprising that health features highly in the discussion supporting the implementation of broadband networks.  Health utilises 10% (and growing) of the national economy.  Broadband (including wireless) networks are merely an enabler of health services and the costs are small in comparison with the costs of personnel and equipment which use those networks.  Nevertheless, I would contend that eHealth enabled by broadband networks is mandatory for a sustainable health sector.  At present it clearly isn’t if costs continue to grow as a proportion of the economy.  No-one would deny the need for nurses, doctors and hospital beds however continual increases are unsustainable.  With 85% of Australian employment already in the services sector, further increases will be at the expense of other important parts of the economy.

The increased application of ICT in the health sector (through eHealth) represents the best opportunity for sustainable health services across the entire population and meeting community expectations for improving health services.  eHealth initiatives inevitable involve change and this is a significant barrier to adoption.  ITEE College Board members are faced with significant opportunities in the health sector and these need to be addressed with solutions which can be adopted readily by all stakeholders (health service users and providers)

Through current initiatives of the Department of Health and Ageing and the National eHealth Transition Authority (NeHTA) including the roll out of Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) we are gradually putting together the systems essential for supporting improving health outcomes through better information availability about individual patients and supporting more efficient processes.  Much of the national Health agenda focuses on hospital care however primary health care is where the major benefits of eHealth can be achieved.  By providing assistive technologies, which enable people to self care or receive care in the home or in residential care, there will be improvements for most patients through remaining in a familiar environment, pressure on high cost hospital beds will diminish and, for those suffering chronic illness, the need for repeated hospital admission will be reduced.  ICT systems are being implemented to, for instance, help reduce clinical errors, manage medication and reduce over servicing all leading to savings which can be applied to improving overall healthcare with obvious benefit to all.  Much more needs to be done as these initiatives are often isolated.

The challenge we face is diverting short term resources to investment in systems and process change which will deliver long term benefits.  The opportunities for ITEE College members whether in information systems, telecommunications or electronics are significant however it needs a long term view not short term stop gaps which rely on increasing recurring costs. 

Engineers must lend their support to investment in long term initiatives for implementing new systems and processes in the health sector otherwise the nation will be unable to sustain expectations for good health services for those who already have them and for those who don’t yet have them.  In this, the Year of Humanitarian Engineering, it is worth noting that investment in technology for primary health care is likely to deliver far reaching benefits to all communities.

Software Architecture or Engineering?

I failed to deliver a column last edition of eMonitor so I am catching up with a second column!  I need to acknowledge with thanks the contribution of Bill Maklin, who runs a Software Engineering & Architecture Joint Technical Program in South Australia, for initiating the thoughts expressed here.

Talk about engineering in the community and many if not most will conjure visions of buildings, roads, bridges, hospitals, dams, railways and so on, generally physical infrastructure. Unfortunately too few regard engineering as the discipline which creates this infrastructure and provides for its ongoing operation and maintenance. Engineering also creates IT infrastructure and its utilisation.  When we talk of software engineering for instance, people are confused because they don't recognise non physical manifestations as engineering. Rather than change this perception a change in terminology is evolving, software architecture in particular. Architecture is indeed a noble profession however it is not engineering. The skill of engineering required in software projects cannot be substituted by architecture.  Engineering takes a holistic approach to implementing software projects, architecture being a component.

How can we change the perception of engineering to its rightful status as a professional discipline which must be followed in implementing for instance IT and in particular software projects, managing risk and change?  Why is it that we seem unable to muster an organising committee for the Australasian (formally Australian) Software Engineering Conference 2012 (ASWEC 2012), a conference series which has hitherto been running for over 20 years?  We cannot continue to rely on just a few individuals, for whom we are extremely grateful, to participate on organising and program committees.  Engineering is an inherently practical discipline so where are all the industry participants to work on the committees (largely drawn from academia) and who can network with academics and others at conferences such as ASWEC?  Please post your feedback and ideas.

Lessons from History

It is a long time since I showed any empathy with Henry Ford’s quote that “history is bunk”. I have plenty of experience to know that history is a great teacher we ignore at our peril.  History tells us that innovation occurs through inspired leadership often perhaps inspired by history, I hope so.

I had the opportunity to attend NICTA’s function to formally farewell David Skellern on his retirement as CEO.  David had previously made his mark in information, telecommunications and electronics through the work that led to the formation of Radiata and its world leading wireless LAN technology.  This work had been pioneered by CSIRO scientists and engineers: the breakthrough came through the technology provided by fast fourier transform chips developed originally with processing radio astronomy data in mind.  The ability of the chips to process multipath wireless signals, an innovative step identified by the wireless LAN team, gave the Radiata technology the necessary ability to realise a practical wireless LAN.  It’s worth considering in the context of the emerging opportunities for the Square Kilometre Array what spin off work might be applied from the SKA to commercial telecommunications. The importance of a radio quiet zone for leading radio astronomy is well known but challenging, perhaps signal processing technology enabled by the need to cancel interference to the SKA may also be applied to improve the performance of wireless communications systems.  Developments in chip technology made the fourier transform chips a practical proposition in commercial systems, viable signal processing could be repeated to deliver more efficient broadband wireless.

I also had the privilege of being able attended the memorial ceremony celebrating the life of Emeritus Professor John Bennett AO. John Bennett’s work at University of Sydney, who brought him back to Australia from UK, was inspired by the School of Physics under Professor Harry Messel who had recognised the importance of pioneers such as John Bennett to enable a foundation of computing science (and engineering) to be developed at academic institutions, providing the skills and research base enabling Australia to become a leader in the ICT industry.  Professor Bennett studied in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering and mathematics and worked on early stored program computers at Cambridge University where he was awarded a doctorate for his dissertation “Some Engineering Applications of Digital Computations” recognising the importance of stored program computing to engineering at an early stage. Such leadership may continue in such areas as Photonics and Quantum Computing in physics departments today.  We cannot be leaders in all facets of ICT and electronics but we cannot afford not to build on the leading skills we have to provide a foundation for future industry.

History confirms the importance of fundamental research in physics and it also illustrates the essential role of engineering in delivering value out of that research.  Engineers are those who are able to convert the pioneering work of physicists and convert it into practical outcomes as we have seen in the area of wireless LANs and computer science and more recently photonics and perhaps soon in quantum computing.  Unfortunately there are trends which seem to be diminishing the value of ICT and electronics training simply because the recognition of that value does not reflect the increasingly pervasive nature of ICT and electronics in all industries.  The importance of investment in training (in particular for graduate and post graduate studies) and inspiring young people to enter ICT engineering careers is the responsibility of those who include members of the ITEE College.   Please help!!

Year of Humanitarian Engineering

It is perhaps fitting at the outset of 2011, apart from wishing all College members all the best for 2011, that I reflect on the opportunity for ITEE College members to participate in activities and initiatives in this Year of Humanitarian Engineering.  Several of our members have set a great example with the initiative of providing critical support to mobile phone and internet users in Brisbane in the immediate aftermath of the floods.  The importance of robust, in particular wireless, telecommunications and data centre (including disaster recovery) infrastructure in the wake of floods, cyclones and other catastrophic failure situations has become very apparent.

 The development and resilience of such infrastructure will be of increasing importance in all countries and, with the continual growth in the electronic services and associated digital economies, there will be an increasing role for ITE/ICT engineers.  This will include support for developing economies in such matters as eHealth, eEducation, financial services (eg microfinancing), and access to spatial information to support new (electronic) services and smart solutions.  The need for more people skilled in these areas throughout the community will become a growing challenge if the opportunities are not to be inhibited.  These needs also exist in many parts of Australian society.  So, here is a challenge to all ITEE College members to create and contribute to various EA initiatives in this Year of Humanitarian Engineering.  

I also take this opportunity to encourage ITEE College members to contribute to the issues currently subject to EA policy development in urban policy, population strategies and sustainability.  The contribution of the ITE/ICT industries to enabling sustainability in the face of urban development and population growth is essential here and overseas!

Virtual Australia

How do decision makers assemble complex sets of information to allow them to make the best decision using the best information available, for instance in the complex area of urban planning, complex because of the diversity of dimensions to the problem? Perhaps they don’t?  Many decisions rely on past experience rather than based on an understanding of how the current and projected situation will influence the outcomes of decisions taken now. Demographic predictions (in a range of scenarios) in particular need to be taken into account (population growth is the subject of current discussion within EA).  The potential complexity of the urban planning decisions is enormous and layering sensitivity analysis and what if scenarios is extremely challenging (and costly) using conventional modelling tools.  The challenges require use of complex computer modelling with access to robust data of known authenticity and integrity.  With impacts of decisions today over many decades we must endeavour to optimise investments for the future to deliver sustainable outcomes.  How can we do this?

I was fortunate recently to attend the Virtual Australia Summit sponsored by Victorian Spatial Council and the Co-operative Research Centre for Spatial Information.  The initiative is planned to lead to the development of a real world model of Australia which will assist in decision making including in relation to infrastructure investment.  It is expected that Virtual Australia will comprise a set of models which draw on common data sets and are interoperable.  Realisation of Virtual Australia will need to progress on a staged basis and be highly dependent on availability of suitable information systems.

This project has the potential to support a wide range of engineering infrastructure investment decisions and activities:  it will depend on ICT engineers.  Members of the ITEE College have an important role here and we need to work closely with members of other Colleges to deliver optimum sustainable futures for Australia.

Software Engineering

I hope you may be already aware that Engineers Australia is sponsoring the forthcoming Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference (Sydney 30 November to 2 December 2010).  This continues EA’s long standing association with software engineering conference in particular the Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC) which takes a break in 2011.  Please support APSEC if you are able to do so: the College is making an opportunity available to students to attend a session to allow them to meet software industry leaders and to network in an activity associated with software engineering conferences which has become known as “Smart Minds”.

Unfortunately EA is not readily associated with Software and indeed neither with ICT: changing that perception will require persistence and a proactive approach by volunteers and staff.  We should be concerned that an engineering organisation such as ourselves is not associated with Software Engineering because it’s the engineering skills applied to software that can deliver optimum outcomes in ICT projects. Unfortunately we hear all too often about the software projects which do not meet requirements (in various ways) and we rarely hear of successful ones.  Why not submit an article to eMonitor describing successful software and ICT projects you have been involved in and the important role of engineering for that project?

It has been interesting to hear our Eminent Speaker for 2010 Dr Terry Stevenson, CTO of Raytheon Australia on the topic of “Engineering Leadership required in the development of complex systems”.  Whilst Terry has completed most of his tour, it is hoped that a video of this presentation will be available on the EA website soon.   This should be of interest to all engineers, especially software engineers.  Watch the website for details of further presentation dates.

The website should be ITEE College’s window to the College membership and the wider ICT community.  When people seem unaware of the software engineering activity of EA and cannot locate the information on the website I become increasingly concerned that the website is not doing what it should.  It’s something the ITEE College should excel with however it needs someone to take ownership and drive the content: anyone interested please let me know.

 Finally on software I am hoping sufficient interest in Sydney Division around APSEC 2010 might enable launch of a Software Engineering Forum similar to a very successful initiative started in Perth and more recently in Adelaide.  The forum becomes a regular opportunity for leaders and other proactive engineers to share issues, solutions and network with other software engineers. If you are interested in such an initiative in your Division please let me know.

Peter Hitchiner

Chair ITEE College Board

ICT at the Centre of Political Debate

It would be hard not to have noticed the attention that the National Broadband Network received in the election campaign.  That the debate should be so focused on the technology and the bits and bytes rather than the services (noting there was some commentary on eHealth and education) is perhaps missing the point. 

 

Put simply the national imperative is to be part of the digital revolution and understand the importance to the economy of being able to play in the digital world.  It’s about smart grids, smart water, smart infrastructure and so on: apart from points of health and education delivery and for businesses, the need for high information rates rarely exists other than for entertainment purposes.  This is not to undervalue the importance of entertainment (which can be educational in its own right) but the really significant economic benefits don’t seem to require 100 Mbps to over 90% of the population, at least not until it’s affordable and/or productivity benefits are clear.  Smart deliverables can be achieved generally at information rates readily available to most of the population today. 

 

So why the fixation on maximising the delivery of 100Mbps (arbitrary because if the network is capable of delivering 100Mbps (ie optical fibre end to end) it’s just as likely to be able to deliver greater than 1Gbps requiring little additional access network cost)?  The fact that other economies have a higher adoption of high information rate services does not necessarily translate to productivity benefits.  It may make life more liveable.  The outdoor culture of Australia is much more aligned with mobile devices and it is not surprising that an increasing portion of users are abandoning fixed lines to the home in favour of (lower information rate) wireless only.  Wireless does require fair access to fibre in the backhaul networks however users are content with wireless speeds and work continues in the area of compression technologies despite the almost limitless capabilities of fibre optic networks.  

 

Perhaps there’s better ways of applying the $43billion, delivering even greater economic benefits.  Who will meet the costs of developing applications that use 100Mbps or even 12Mbps effectively?  The digital economy requires products which meet needs in a cost effective and affordable way.  Engineers can make it so!  There are simply insufficient ICT engineers in influential and leadership positions.  Furthermore we continue to be influenced by overseas equipment suppliers whereas an indigenous industry more understanding of local needs is essential.  We are steadily losing the capabilities to be leaders.  Australia still has world leading capability in fibre optics albeit diminishing since the work of the Australian Photonics CRC concluded. 

 

In any case we must take the opportunity to install fibre to the home in new developments and to progressively replace aging copper with fibre. Backhaul access and upgrade is what is required and whether 1Gbps is delivered to the home, the backhaul (and international capacity) will remain the limiting parts of the network.  Perhaps investing in capabilities in this regard is where some of the $43 Billion should be directed?

 

In my view engineers should be providing leadership to ensure optimum delivery of ICT infrastructure and applications and avoid the trap of biggest is best.