Innovation and technology - art or science?

The role of art and innovation in technology is the subject of the Turing Talk, to be presented in London, Glasgow, Manchester and Belfast this week (19-22 February 2018) by the Chairman of Cambridge Network, Dr Andy Harter CBE FREng FIET FBCS.

In his lecture Dr Harter will discuss the role of “art” in innovation and technology including not only the aesthetic but also craft, design, skill, invention and intuition.

Andy will draw on his own expertise and experiences in computing and ask if we can do more to appreciate and promote the importance of “art” as a feature on the interdisciplinary landscape?

Speaker biography

Dr Andy Harter CBE FREng FIET FBCS is a distinguished innovator and entrepreneur. He was Director of Research and Engineering at the influential AT&T Cambridge Laboratory where he led many hardware and software projects through to commercial exploitation.

He was responsible for VNC software and its seminal role in establishing the remote access market. The technology is on over a billion devices, is on more different kinds of computer than any other application and is an official part of the internet.

He has an MA and a PhD from Cambridge University, where he is a Fellow of the Computer Laboratory and chair of Cambridge Network. He has received numerous awards, including the Silver Medal and MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Faraday Medal of the IET. In 2017 he was awarded a CBE for services to engineering.

Book now

Talks take place as follows:

19 February 2018, 6pm - 8:30pm | IET London: Savoy Place

20 February 2018, 5:30pm - 8pm | University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

21 February 2018, 5:30pm - 8pm | University of Manchester, Manchester

22 February 2018, 5:30pm - 8pm | Belfast City Hall, Belfast

Webcast

The London EngTalk will be streamed live as a webcast at 18.30 GMT today (Monday 19 February 2018).

Watch the live webcast of the 2018 Turing Lecture

About the IET/BCS Turing Lecture

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The all-pervasive nature of the general-purpose computer has made a profound mark on almost every aspect of our lives.

In honour and recognition of Turing's contribution to the field of computing, the IET and BCS established the Turing Lecture in 1999.

The central seminal figure in this computer revolution was Alan Turing, whose outstanding originality and vision made it possible, in work originating in the mid 1930s.

Although it is now hard to see what the limits of the computer revolution might eventually be, it was Turing himself who pointed out the very existence of such theoretical limitation.