Software development vital to solving societal problems

 CEBU, Philippines - Computer software development is going to be essential in building a healthier and safer planet and in solving the world’s existing hurdles, an information technology expert said. 

Srini Devadas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said that computer software can actually help the humanity deal with the societal problems such as climate change, an aging workforce, transport deadlock, financial crisis and cancer.

In his presentation entitled “Programming the Future,” he said that there are three computing paradigms which will be central to the progress in computers, software and hardware – programming for everyone, big data and crowds to clouds.

Once graphical programming and programming in English would be enabled, he added that there could be a billion programmers in 2050 who could build systems towards development.

“If we can process this data efficiently and discover patterns or hidden meaning in it, we can make spectacular progress in fields ranging from healthcare to finance to energy,” he said.

He noted that the amount of data is growing at 50% annually as most enterprises today generate more data than they can process.

Devadas then advised to combine the strengths of both human and machine as the best approach to tackle the big data challenge.

He projected that in the future, billions of people will make use of devices to connect to trillions of processers in the cloud.

He also cited the projects in human computation of Rob Miller which are real-time crowd systems with high quality, low latency and low cost.

Such examples are the VizWiz that lets blind people to ask visual question of a crowd by taking a picture and get an answer in less than a minute and the Adrenaline, a smart camera shutter, which enables the user to take a ten-second video and get a crowd to pick the best still-picture from it in less than 10 seconds. 

With such computing paradigms, he said that the Earth’s problems can be addressed through rapid response to disaster, genetic diagnostics and therapy, autonomic driving and self-regulation.

Devadas delivered his presentation during the MIT Faculty Lecture Series last July 23 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino as part of the celebration of Accenture Technology Month in collaboration with MIT Professional Education.

He will also present his lecture in Manila at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel on July 27.  (FREEMAN)