Special Lecture: A New Values-Based Vision for Computer Science

Abstract: Open Science is a new paradigm of doing research, promoting collaboration, transparency, accountability, and reproducibility, aiming at more impactful outcomes for society. The ACM Code of Ethics expresses the conscience of the profession and offers a manual for computing professionals to act responsibly, consistently supporting the public good. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are the present-day definition of grand challenges for humanity and its environment, and none can be achieved without significant advances in computing. Is the CS community willing to change its course and pivot towards a life cycle that puts societal values in par with technical and scientific excellence? In this talk, I’ll give a tour of these three values-based dimensions of a new vision for the life of computer scientists and computing professionals in general. They are all part of the ACM 4.0 Initiative, which I have proposed and is under implementation currently.

Bio: Yannis Ioannidis is the President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a Professor of Informatics and Telecommunications of the University of Athens, and an Associated Faculty at the “Athena” Research and Innovation Center, where he also served as the President and General Director for 10 years. Before returning to Greece, he was a Computer Sciences faculty at UW-Madison. His research interests include Database and Information Systems, Data Science, Data Infrastructures, Recommender Systems and Personalization, and Interactive Digital Storytelling, topics on which he has published over 170 articles in leading journals and conferences and also holds four patents. His work is often inspired by and applied to data management and analysis problems that arise in industrial environments or in the context of other scientific fields (Social Sciences and Humanities, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences) and the Arts. He is an ACM and IEEE Fellow, a member of Academia Europaea, and a recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the UW Chancellor's Teaching Award. He is a co-chair of the Global Climate Hub of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.