BCS campaign highlights vital role of IT workers during coronavirus pandemic

The British Computer Society (BCS) has announced the launch of a new campaign that aims to recognise the achievements of IT professionals working for critical services during the coronavirus pandemic.

The campaign, vITal workers, is focused on distinguishing IT workers and raising awareness of their contributions over social media.

BCS will be sharing and liking posts that showcase the examples of contributions made by IT professionals using the hashtag #vITalworker. Every few days, the society’s accounts will be tagging the best #vITalworker examples and rewarding the professionals with “an exclusive vITal worker laptop sticker and pin badge”.

In a written statement, BCS CEO Paul Fletcher thanked all charter members, digital apprentices, and teachers.

“Today, as large parts of the world's population battle the spread of coronavirus in isolation we are reliant on computing and digital services to connect us to our families and colleagues like never before,” he wrote.

Fletcher added that “BCS is committed to harnessing the power of computing to improve people's lives during this crisis, by offering expertise to those who need it most”.

BCS was founded in 1957 and today counts 60,000 members working in IT globally. In 2009, it rebranded as the Chartered Institute for IT.

Last month, IDC projected that the coronavirus pandemic would cause IT spending to be cut by $200 billion in 2020. The IT sector is also at the forefront of a global decline in job vacancies, with IT job postings dropping by more than a fifth (-21.7%) since the beginning of March, according to job search engine Adzuna, while IT vacancies in the UK fell 13.4%.

Despite the hard times for the IT sector, tech firms have been joining the battle to contain the coronavirus pandemic by coming up with new innovations, donating equipment, providing AI expertise, and even free cyber security protection.