[Ambassadors] BCS meeting with CEO and president of the BCS

[Tristan Santore]

Dear All,

Today I had a meeting with the President and the CEO of the BCS (British
Computer Society), to make them more aware of FOSS, and to lobby for
greater inclusion in the University/Educational curriculum. For those of
you, who are/were studying in the UK, you will probably have had the
same experience as me, in terms of a one-sided view of the
curriculum(Java, VB.net and MS applications). The meeting was generally
about the BCS and where it will be steering in the future, so I am glad
I attended the meeting.

Much to my amazement, President Elisabeth Sparrow, stated that
Universities seem to be pushing for more FOSS to be included and used.
However, as a fellow attendee stated, there seems to be a lack of
knowledge/experience in academic staff, in particular what happens or is
demanded in the real world, which comes to no surprise really.

I gave President Elizabeth Sparrow and CEO David Clarke both a Fedora
pen and F11 media, which I had leftover SWAG wise, as a reminder that
they should also think of FOSS, when making representations to our
Government, businesses and academic institutions.

In particular Elizabeth seemed eager for me to stress the point in the
meeting itself, so it would be on the record, as to what my personal
experience at University was, and what should really happen, in terms of
putting more of a less one-sided view across in our educational
institutions.

BCS members are advised that further meetings will take place, and if
you would like to make a point clear, as to what you think the BCS
should do on the IT professionals behalf, it might be wise for some of
you to attend, see link below:

http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.35470

Further, we were informed that the CITP (Charted IT Professional)
status, will be changed to have several different fields. As far as I
understood, maybe it be wise to make sure that one field is FOSS
related. This could be server admin related fields, or maybe others.
However, I have not have had much details on the proposals yet, but what
makes this change interesting is, that other countries seem interested
in a qualification with such a high acclaim, that is universally
understood, as for many companies it is indistinguishable, in terms of
what applicants have for qualifications or what their knowledge base
really is.

Regards,

Tristan Santore

-- 
Tristan Santore BSc MBCS
TS4523-RIPE
Network and Infrastructure Operations
InterNexusConnect
Mobile +44-78-55069812
Tristan.Santore at internexusconnect.net

Former Thawte Notary
(Please note: Thawte has closed its WoT programme down,
and I am therefor no longer able to accredit trust)

For Fedora related issues, please email me at:
TSantore at fedoraproject.org