My Presidential Speech

I have given my presidential speech a number of times throughout my year as President,  and recently in Galway,  for the last time.   I've therefore (at last :-) posted the full text of it here.

Western Region Conferring and Presidential Address

This evening I was the kind guest of the Western Region at their professional conferring ceremony in the Clayton Hotel in Galway.  I was particularly delighted that amongst the twenty members conferred tonight,  three were to Fellowship. of registered status (Fellow,  Chartered and Associate) on a number of their members.  I also gave my Presidential Address,  and took questions from the audience afterwards.

Midlands Region Conferring and Presidential Address

Yesterday evening I was the kind guest of the Midlands Region at their conferring of registered status (Chartered and Associate) on a number of their members,  at the Clonmore House hotel in Tullamore.  I also gave my Presidential Address which stimulated quite a lot of discussion and questions afterwards.

Annual Conference

Well,  the dust has settled after a great annual conference in Cork last thursday and friday.  Well over 300 people attended,  and I suspect the final figure may be as high as 350.

Last monday (19th),  I was very concerned since we had lost four featured speakers due to Eyjafjallajökull - Minister Conor Lenihan, Craig Barrett, Ian Quinn and Bertrand Barré. Conor was stuck in Dubai;  Craig on US east coast;  Ian on US west coast and Bertrand in Paris.  Bertrand very kindly agreed to do a video conference instead.  I approached Ian's CEO,  Helen Ryan who happened to be in the country, and she very kindly agreed to take his place.  But both Conor and Craig were completely unavailable.

ICE Presidential Address

On Friday 16th last,  we were honoured to have Prof. Paul Jowitt of the Institution of Civil Engineers,  visit us and deliver his presidential address.  I had previously met Paul in Belfast and he was kind enough to attend my own presidential address in London.

Paul and his wife June had a challenging time reaching us,  leaving Glasgow at 9.30am,  and travelling via Stranraer,  Larne and Belfast,  to reach us by 7pm.  I am very grateful for their determination!

Presidential Address - London

I gave my Presidential Address as a guest of our GB region this evening under the leadership of Catherine O'Sullivan,  at the Institution of Civil Engineers headquarters in Westminster.  About 50 people attended.  In my presentation,  which I have previously given in Clyde Road,  I consciously try to address both non software specialists in the audience as well as software practitioners - in the event,  only 2 of the 50 were software engineers.

Regulation and Licensing of Professional Engineers

One of my stated personal objectives for my Presidency this year was to advance the regulation and licensing of Professional Engineers in Ireland.   I reflected on this issue,  as affects Software Engineering,  in my presidential address.

Presidential Address

I gave my first address as President yesterday evening, at Clyde Road and via Webex. I'll be giving a small number of invited repeat performances throughout the remainder of the year.

My main theme was the technical challenges in certifying software design and development as safe - safe from harming humans or damaging property.

Regulation of Engineering in Ireland is a key issue for Engineers Ireland. Currently, the profession is weakly regulated as compared to certain other jurisdictions. Elsewhere, all engineering works which may impact the health and safety of the public, or may give rise to material harm to property, must by law be duly certified by a professional Engineer.

Presidential Address

I'm planning my presidential address, which I will give a number of times during my year as President, with the first one being in Clyde Road in September.

I'm planning to discuss why it is so challenging to engineer software safely, and hope the talk can be of interest to non-software engineers, and specialists, alike.

I met with Prof. Mike Hinchey this afternoon for a coffee, to get a briefing from him on some of the latest trends in safety critical software.

Mike has extensive experience at NASA, and is currently working in the University of Limerick Lero software engineering research entre. He is commercially developing technology to exploit US patents he holds in the area, as Silicon Republic recently reported.

Mike walked me through some the case work with the planned automated repair of the Hubble telescope, and how that has helped define the technology with which he is now working.