Andrew and Kathleen Booth Memorial Lecture

The Andrew and Kathleen Booth Memorial Lecture is delivered annually by world-renowned scholars and practitioners of computer science, to commemorate the pioneering work of Professor Andrew Booth and Kathleen Booth (née Britten) at Birkbeck. 

In 1947, both academics visited the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University, where they worked with John von Neumann, one of the most influential early computer pioneers. Their best-known machine, the APEC (All-Purpose Electronic Computer), was designed in Birkbeck’s Computation Laboratory (which became the former Department of Computer Science and Information Systems) in 1952.

2024

Chris Webb: Data Literacy for All: Creating a data culture within an organisation.
Modern organisations – business, charities, governments – are awash with data and it seems obvious to state they should be making decisions based on that data, not on gut feeling. Everyone in an organisation needs to be data literate to some degree. But what does 'data literacy' actually mean and how can organisations make the technical and cultural changes necessary to achieve it? In this talk Chris Webb, a Birkbeck alumnus who currently works at Microsoft and has spent the last 25 years working in data and analytics, will present a personal view of this topic. He blogs about MS technology and related topics.

2022

Professor Marina Jirotka, Professor of Human Centred Computing, University of Oxford: 'Responsible robotics: What could possibly go wrong?'

Thursday 9 June