International Conference on Software Engineering in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the host of the 39° World Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2017). This is the first time this conference takes place in Latin America. The objective of the meeting was to gather together the scientific community and software engineering professionals and share the most recent developments, trends and innovations in that field. The activities began on Saturday 20^th with 45 workshops and continued up to June 28^th.

During the opening, which took place at one auditorium of the Sheraton Hotel, the minister of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation (MINCyT), Lino Barañao, declared how meaningful it was for our country to host the ICSE “because our final objective is to promote economy based on knowledge.” The technology based companies are the future, just as the future of employment, because all the everyday activities will be replaced by computers, and the remaining jobs will involve creativity and humor.”

He also added: “Argentine is known for its capacity to think differently and overcome difficulties, a positive aspect in science as it allows us to see what others do not. This meeting is a sign that shows the value of science and technology for a better future.”

For his part, Sebastián Uchitel, CONICET researcher, director of the Instituto de Ciencias de la Computación (ICC, CONICET-UBA), and responsible for the ICSE 2017 organization, presented some figures about the enrolled people: “If we observe the percentages of the regions that participate, the most represented one is Latin America, which is fantastic, but there’s great diversity. As regards the work places, there is some interesting information if we compare it with the nationality of each one, because despite the fact that most of them work at the USA, many were not born there. This is particularly relevant for the region, which had experienced the ‘brain drain’ for several years.” In the same way, he highlighted the fact that the event took place in Argentina: “This represents a recognition for the scientific community in Argentina”, he said. As regard the challenges in the area, Uchitel described: “Software engineering is a victim of its own success. If you analyze our activity ten years ago, you will notice our development and the sophistication of the products grew so much that what we’re studying on how to improve our software production becomes too small. Our challenge is how to boost software innovation and not die in the attempt.”

For his part, Juan Pablo Galeotti, CONICET researcher and organizer of the Search-Based Software Testing Workshop, explains that from his area of work, scientists try to foresee software problems before they occur in real life. “We noticed that the software becomes more and more important as it appears in drones, airplanes, telephones. In some way, software is conquering the world, and we have to preserve ourselves”, concluded the scientists, PhD in Communication Sciences.