Can we ask for your help?


I believe that all agree that computer technologies (or the digital revolution, choose your preferred terminology) has changed almost all professions and activities, and this trend is going to continue. 


The error in above statement is “almost all professions and activities”, since the word “almost” should be missing.

 
It is the aim of our current undertaking to show clearly to all decision makers how broadly computer technologies are revolutionizing all activities, and that this has to be taken care of in all educational institutions. This does not mean that everyone has to learn how to program, or that everyone needs an  i-Pad or such. It does mean, however, that all understand the basics of algorithmic thinking and how powerful assistants computers can be. There is no need to learn the specific strange and changing details of some software package, but it is necessary that that there are no fears of new computer applications, and that a certain curiosity in new applications becomes natural.


We want to show in a collaborative effort, requiring very limited effort by any individual, how deep and broad the influence of computers has been and will be. We ask all of you, whose job/ occupation has changed in the past due to computers or who see such changes on the horizon to write a short personal report about this: You do not have to do any deep research or try for completeness, just note down one or more personal experiences and send them to hmaurer@iicm.edu who will collect the stories and make them available on a freely accessible Webserver and inform you of the URL of your story within days of receipt.  It is entirely up to you how short or long your report will be, whether it will be text only, or have some pictures in it.


We need such reports for all professions: be it banking, or producing and selling books, mechanical engineering, civil engineering or architecture, repairing cars or machinery, changes in agriculture, trading goods, traffic on the ground, in water or in the air, tourism or how to book events, music or theatre, medicine or social work,  or whatever.  Communication with companies and governmental agencies has changed, so have journalism and all media; there are hundreds of spectacular applications of smart phones, or changes in handling matters of law, of software and hardware production and maintenance, the use of 3D for viewing or printing, dramatic shifts in  printing processes, in conducting opinion polls, in advertising, in logistics and security aspects, new ways to use drones, to produce photos or interactive movies and games; the effect of computers on operations research or physics, or archaeology, or libraries,  or publishing houses, methods of production, of packaging , selling and getting the products to their destinations, all subjects taught under natural sciences, social sciences, economics, media, humanities and life science have to be considered, etc. etc. etc.


The list is clearly arbitrarily long. Your Job/occupation is X? We bet X has or will change because of computers. Thus, do help us by writing a story about this. Short or long, personal or not, and send it as text, as word-file with pictures in it, or pictures as attachment separate. Just note: pictures must be ok as far as copyright is concerned, so you may e.g. use a photo that you took, or one that is in “public domain” or a picture in e.g. Wikipedia by just sending us the URL, we will add the correct license in the caption.

First conribution (German orEnglish) can already be seen on https://austria-forum.org/af/Stories_of_change .  
Contributions can be quite short like the one on Telex (by Schnurr) , or a bit more technical like the one on dataflow (by Mencer), or entertaining like the one by a friend of mine on medicine (Fielder) or the one on automation in agriculture (by Gronauer et al), etc.  

Since we started the project with nearby computer people, German as language and computer stuff are dominant (much too dominant, at the moment) so we are very much waiting for more reports in English and in areas other than computers.  We will restructure the page when have many more contributions.


Join us! We want to make sure that politician understand that all people should have a basic understanding how powerful (and may be how dangerous) computers are and will be.

 
Thanks!
Hermann Maurer, http://www.ae-info.org/ae/Acad_Main/List_of_Members, hmaurer@iicm.edu












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