The popular BCS Bristol talks series is to return this year for a brain-tickling introduction to some exciting technologies and ideas.
“The purpose of the talks is to offer independence and objectivity on today’s technology subjects”
The BCS Bristol series’ so far has seen some of the most innovative techies, entrepreneurs and inventors from the South West and beyond speak about everything from advances in supercomputing to the ethics of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) to a packed-out audience of both high-tech bods and the simply tech curious.
And 2018’s series will be sure to inspire, as Lloyd Skinner (pictured right), founder of local management consultancy Greyfly and BCS Bristol’s talks organiser, explains: “The whole purpose of the talks, provided for free by the BCS, is to offer independence and objectivity on today’s technology subjects. As such, in a relatively short period, we hope to give our diverse audience an overview of a range of particular subjects.”
The low-down on Blockchain
This year things are kicking off on 7 March at the University of Bristol with Tim Kindberg – founder of Bristol-based digital tech company Matter2Media and the brains behind the fantastic interactive vorb spheres, and Somil Goyal – COO of fintech company Adjoint who will be demystifying blockchain tech.
Tim will debate digital currenies such as Bitcoin and other blockchain-based systems such as Ethereum and will explain why he is skeptical about the technologies that underlie them and look at what needs to be done. Somil, on the other hand, will discuss distributed ledger technology how it extends the traditional database model, using smart contracts within finance as his example.
“We deliberately aim to de-mystify some of today’s technology subjects”
The series will also see a talk from University of Bath Professor Joanna Bryson and Thomas Bradley, the CTO of visual computing company Nvidia in April on AI and machine learning – with later months in the series featuring themes including big data, cyber security, the internet of thing, drones and robotics.
And with so many interesting topics in the series to find out about, Lloyd tells us: “I have been very lucky to have had the privileged position to meet many speakers who are leaders in their field. Together, we deliberately aim to de-mystify some of today’s technology subjects.
“So, although I like to hear all talks, I personally have an affinity with any technology that is likely to be revolutionary and will have significant impact on us and what we perceive to be the norm – I think at the moment for me that means machine learning and robotics.”
Find out more about the talk series and register for your free place by visiting the BCS Bristol website. You can also stay up-to-date with future talks by following BCS Bristol on Twitter here: @BCSBristol.
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