KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Pekka Himanen | Barry Boehm | Kent Beck | Sean Hanly | Jack Järkvik

 

Pekka Himanen is one of the internationally best-known researchers of the information age, whose works on the subject have been published in 20 languages from Asia to America (English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Croatian, Estonian, Swedish and Finnish).

After obtaining his PhD in Philosophy as the youngest doctor ever in Finland at the age of 20 (University of Helsinki 1994), Himanen moved to carry out research first in England and then in California (Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley). The best-known publication of this research is the book The Hacker Ethic (Random House 2001). Himanen has also coauthored with Prof. Manuel Castells the influential book The Information Society and the Welfare State (Oxford University Press 2002), which has been discussed worldwide in the leading academic and political circles. Himanen is nowadays a popular lecturer around the world.

As a sign of his impact, Himanen’s work has been recognized with several awards, such as the World Economic Forum’s respected Global Leader for Tomorrow Award in 2003. Dr. Himanen has also had an important role in the actual making of the information society policy. Recently, he has advised the International Labor Organization’s High Level Commission on Globalization on the building of a socially sustainable global information society. In Finland, Dr. Himanen has recently finished the preparation of a new information society strategy for the Finnish Parliament’s Committee for the Future.

Currently, Himanen divides his time between being a professor at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, a visiting professor at Oxford, and a principal scientist at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (a joint research center of the Helsinki University of Technology and Helsinki University). To contact him, email pekka.himanen@hiit.fi

 

 

 

Barry Boehm received his B.A. degree from Harvard in 1957, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA in 1961 and 1964, all in Mathematics. Between 1989 and 1992, he served within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as Director of the DARPA Information Science and Technology Office, and as Director of the DDR&E Software and Computer Technology Office. He worked at TRW from 1973 to 1989, culminating as Chief Scientist of the Defense Systems Group, and at the Rand Corporation from 1959 to 1973, culminating as Head of the Information Sciences Department. His current research interests include software process modeling, software requirements engineering, software architectures, software metrics and cost models, software engineering environments, and knowledge-based software engineering. His contributions to the field include the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO), the Spiral Model of the software process, the Theory W (win-win) approach to software management and requirements determination and two advanced software engineering environments: the TRW Software Productivity System and Quantum Leap Environment. He has served on the board of several scientific journals, including the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Computer, IEEE Software, ACM Computing Reviews, Automated Software Engineering, Software Process, and Information and Software Technology.

 

 

 

Kent Beck is the Founder and Director of Three Rivers Institute (TRI). His career has combined the practice of software development with reflection, innovation, and communication. His contributions to software development include patterns for software, the rediscovery of test-first programming, the xUnit family of developer testing tools, and Extreme Programming. He currently divides his time between writing, programming, and coaching. Beck is the author/co-author of Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition, Contributing to Eclipse, Test-Driven Development: By Example, Planning Extreme Programming, The Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, and the JUnit Pocket Guide. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

 

 

 

Sean Hanly is a co-founder and director of Exoftware, an Agile mentoring and development company. Sean currently heads Exoftware's delivery services overseeing Agile transitions, as well as working hands on as a mentor and trainer for clients throughout Europe. As well as client-based work, Sean has lectured on Agile methods at University College Dublin and worked closely with the DSDM Consortium on the release of XP and DSDM. Sean also spends time speaking at industry events, and writing on Agile topics for various industry publications such as Computer Weekly, IT Week and Application Development Trends. He has been instrumental in kick starting Exactor, an OpenSource acceptance testing framework, currently being used by several Agile teams. Prior to founding Exoftware, Sean held programming, technical architect and team lead positions with companies such as Allied Irish Bank, Jeffries and Company and American Management Systems, where he was awarded a Principal position ­ one the youngest people ever to achieve the position at AMS. Sean received his honours Bachelor of Commerce and honours Masters in Information Technology degrees from University College Galway. Sean is also currently the CTO and board member of 3Q Solutions Limited.

 

 

 

Jack Järkvik  Educated at Gotheburg University, Chalmers University of Technology and Sloan School of Management ´, MIT. Nearly thirty years in telecom of which driving his own consulting firm one decade. Now reemployed at Ericsson, presently a vice president of R&D Operational Excellence. Has dealt with system development nearly all his career ranging from AXE, GSM as well as CDMA and WCDMA.