Multidisciplinary teams often involve some scientists, engineers, mathematicians and other individuals. The use of computing facilities, analytical tools and techniques, networking interconnectivity, and user interaction design plays a part in the 21st century.
Without all the computer scientists introduced on this page, we would not have the world we enjoy. The use of technological advancement is enabling much scientific development, societal engagement, and commercial activities. Nowadays, professionals are likely to use these tools and understand to a certain extent their strengths and weaknesses. It does not mean that such skills bring a level of expertise that computer scientists have been developing are not becoming redundant.
Computer science is part of multi-disciplinary teams
Multidisciplinary teams often involve some scientists, engineers, mathematicians and other individuals. The use of computing facilities, analytical tools and techniques, networking interconnectivity, and user interaction design plays a part in the 21st century.
Without all the computer scientists introduced on this page, we would not have the world we enjoy. The use of technological advancement is enabling much scientific development, societal engagement, and commercial activities. Nowadays, professionals are likely to use these tools and understand to a certain extent their strengths and weaknesses. It does not mean that such skills bring a level of expertise that computer scientists have been developing are not becoming redundant.
The field of computer science has traditionally focused on hardware, software, and network. Some computer scientists view data as information that has been structured for some storage. The latter can be any information and data. Medical practitioners can perceive their data as unique, invaluable. Strict law and legislation affect their research. Biologists can have similar views in their fields. Environmentalists, animal protection, forest managers perceive their data the same way. This list is not exhaustive.
Many computer scientists are interested in their structure, size, and management. For example, I have witnessed computer scientists describe Bayesian networks as directed acyclic graphs and how some connections represent numerical values. It is a particular view of a possible implementation of these probabilistic graphical models. Forestry management and astronomy rely on satellite images that are converted into rasters. These rasters can be as large as 1 Gb; more and more of this data is being captured and stored. These disciplines rely on extensive computing facilities to process and store their datasets. Their primary focus is to analyse them and find new knowledge. Computer scientists are more concerned about bringing the tools to access such large datasets and bring enough storage to the scientists. All these views are valid in their contexts. Still, we all need to admit our limits and embrace a multidisciplinary approach to research, social engagement and commercial activities.
In the last few years, the author has personally engaged in making aware of non-computer scientists about issues they have yet to anticipate. The other non-computer scientists have made her aware of problems and theoretical elements that she did not fully understand. Together, we overcame many difficulties, built a good team, and learnt from each other a lot. It took time to develop a vocabulary we all understood, the knowledge that we could all share, and thrive in our areas of specialisms. However, sometimes, we did not solve some problems due to a lack of listening and embracing other people areas of specialism.
Non-computing expertise brings a purpose to computer science
Let’s use the Cloud. It integrates storage, high-computation facilities, networking, security, web technologies. Organisations may have opened hardware facilities held in organisations in the past to a centralised model. Without the need, the Cloud would not have become popular. But new challenges arise. These slides will make this clearer. Some demand has guided such development, and therefore the more we use it, the more it is developing.
Innovation relies on need, combining existing knowledge and expertise for new purposes. Without an inclusive and integrated multidisciplinary approach, this cannot occur.
Future of computer scientists
If the author had not evolved with the development of computer scientists, she would have become unemployable. Acknowledging and embracing multi-discipline has played an essential role in her career, and she has yet to stop assuming it. However, new computer science graduates should be taught such discipline and an endeavour to grow as their discipline develop.
The author viewpoints would encourage computer scientists to learn and gain outstanding mathematical skills. It should help them communicate with many scientific communities. Including other specialisms within computing degrees should bring resilience and more skills favoured in the 21st Century. These computer scientists could engage more readily with bioscience, financial services, medical practitioners, forestry management, and other disciplines. Computer science, mathematics, and physic should assist many gamers in starting working in such an industry. Computer science, psychology and education should bring forward computer scientists in designing better interactive devices.
Computer science should not turn its back to its foundation too. Theories of computations should be revisited, extended to the increasing use of distributed data storage, privacy preservation, large size of datasets, abuse of technology against humanity, and bringing greener algorithms.
Computer scientists should become heroes and portrayed like heroes. They should be portrayed in movies and other contexts as individuals that enable development, research, and entertainment. They should be held as heroes like we sometimes worship inventors, innovators, and engineers of the 19th and 20th Century. They just are.
Interesting Computing 