Adrian Schofield, most recently head of consulting at ForgeAhead, has joined the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE).
Schofield will head the centre's Applied Research Unit, managing its sectoral research activities.
His involvement with the centre, he says, started in 2004 when the City of Joburg and Wits University agreed to put together an institution to further the objective of making Johannesburg a world-class city in the ICT arena. Once that was in place, Schofield then "did other things for a few years", he says.
"This year, professor Barry Dwolatzsky [director of the centre] decided that one of the objectives that was set out had not yet been met. That objective was to create the capacity to do applied research in the centre. My job is to get that facility up and running and to get research activity in place."
The unit will conduct research into anything that underpins the development of the software sector in southern Africa.
"So we will be looking at issues like skills, the demand and supply; we'll be looking at competitiveness, innovation and so on. My job is to work with the relevant stakeholders, who range from private enterprise through to government bodies and other research institutions to bring together the appropriate body of knowledge, and leverage that knowledge for the development of the sector," he says.
Schofield's involvement in the sector stretches back many years. He has served, variously, as the regional director for Africa of CompTIA and president of Information Industry SA. He is the current chairman of the African Federation of ICT Associations, and has been since September 2004.
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