Board Candidate
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Jens Weber, P.Eng. | Victoria, BC
I am grateful for having been given the opportunity and trust to serve on the Board over the last term, where we have worked through significant changes. One highlight was forming a new strategic plan to become a leader in modern regulation. I am motivated to serve a second term to guide the plan's implementation to completion. My experiences as a practitioner in an emerging discipline as well as an academic provide me with perspectives that will aid in realizing this vision.
EGBC's continuing transition to becoming a pure regulator is a current concern. Like many registrants, I became licensed when our organization was an association with a dual mandate to regulate and advocate for our professions. The advent of the Professional Governance Act required us to restrict our programs to regulatory matters only. Navigating this transition is not easy. It needs revisions and transitions of programs we recognize as having fundamental value and importance. The current Board has made it a priority to foster and support opportunities to allow the continuation of these valuable activities in another form. The BC Society of Engineering and Geoscience (BCSEG) was founded as an independent advocacy body in this context. While BCSEG is independent, our registrants and the publics we serve will benefit from a strong advocacy body. I am excited about the opportunities arising from these changes and intend to foster a collaborative and trustful relationship between the two organizations.
Education
PhD (Software Engineering), University of Paderborn, Germany, 1999
Professional History
Associate Dean, Professional Programs, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Victoria, 2024
Partner, ExperEdge Technology Partners, Victoria, 2001–2024
Professor, University of Victoria, 1999–2024
Director of Software Engineering, University of Victoria, 2007–2014
Engineers and Geoscientists BC Activities
Member, Governance Sub-Committee, 2022–2024
Member, Board, 2021–2024
Member, Audit Sub-Committee, 2021–2023
Member, Software Engineering Advisory Group, 2019–2023
Co-author, Practice Guideline on Safety Critical Software, 2017–2019
Related Professional Activities
Member, IEEE-P1228 Standards Committee, Standard for Software Safety, IEEE, 2019–2024
Member, IEEE Public Safety, Software Security/Privacy Committee, 2022–2024
Associate Editor, Journal of Health Informatics Research, 2016–2024
General Co-Chair, 9th Int. IEEE Conference on Health Informatics, 2021
Member, Discovery Grant Review Panel, NSERC, 2013–2019
Community Involvement
Referee, BC Soccer Referee Association, 2019–2024
Member, Board of Directors, Open Source Clinical Appliance Resource Electronic Medical Record (OSCAR-EMR) User Society, 2015–2020
Member, National Technical Committee, Open Source Clinical Appliance Resource (OSCAR-EMR) 2014–2017
Awards and Honours
Industry Research Fellowship, B.C. Innovation Council, 2001–2004
Ernst-Denert Award for Software Engineering, Ernst Denert Foundation, 2000
Q&A with Candidates
Engineers and Geoscientists BC is the regulatory authority charged with protecting the public interest with respect to the practice of engineering and geoscience in the province of BC. What is the key challenge facing the organization?
The ability and privilege to self-regulate have been at the core of our traditional understanding of what constitutes a profession. However, regulatory experts have warned of an international trend undermining this privilege. There are examples where professional regulatory bodies have been criticized for putting the interests of professionals ahead of those of the public. In some cases, self-regulatory privileges were revoked as a result. Canada is one of the remaining jurisdictions with a strong reliance on self-regulation. A central factor for this strength has been our collective willingness and commitment to modernize and improve our approach to self-regulation.
This can result in difficult changes, like the decision to phase out some of our programs and transition them to an independent advocacy body, the BC Society of Engineering and Geoscience (BCSEG).
Launching a program to regulate firms and strengthening our continuous education program are further examples of implementing recognized best practices in effective self-regulation. With these changes, EGBC gained a reputation as a national leader in modern regulation. These changes, which are designed to enhance our profession's standards and maintain public trust, will allow us to maintain and extend public trust in our self-regulating professions.
An important challenge will be to properly communicate the reasons for these changes to all registrants and volunteers and to be open to raised concerns and potential program improvements. Another challenge (and opportunity!) will be to build out our collaborative relationship with BCSEG.
What are the key issues facing the engineering and/or geoscience professions?
I see three main types of issues arising from environmental, scientific, and geopolitical changes, respectively. Each of these issues poses challenges but also opens new opportunities for our professions.
To start with, climate change and the need to adapt our practices to meet sustainability objectives will continue to impact all our professions. As Engineers and Geoscientists, we have a crucial role in protecting our society from the negative effects of unsustainable past practices and devising sustainable solutions for a livable future. This will require the modernization of existing practice guidelines as well as the development of new guidance, a task that we are uniquely equipped to handle.
The second issue arises due to the rapidly increasing speed of scientific innovations and the resulting emerging areas of practice, e.g., in the context of artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, and autonomous systems. These emerging practice areas have great potential benefits but also carry significant risks. As a regulator, the public looks to us to keep pace with these emerging areas and find the right regulatory touch that mitigates harm while allowing our society to benefit from these innovations.
The third issue stems from recent geopolitical changes. While EGBC's mandate to protect the public is more general, its traditional focus has been on safety, i.e., preventing accidents. Recent geopolitical developments have increased the importance of adding considerations beyond accidental failure, i.e., a focus on purposefully induced accidents.
Looking five years ahead, what is your vision for Engineers and Geoscientists BC as a professional regulatory body in BC?
Looking five years ahead, my vision for Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC) is that of a regulator that is recognized and trusted by the diverse publics that we serve to protect. I envision EGBC as an organization that practitioners will not only want to join, but will feel a sense of pride and ownership in, not because it is required but because they are an integral part of our effective self-regulating profession.
Our strategic plan envisions EGBC becoming a "Collaboration Hub" to bring practitioners together to solve problems with a declared emphasis on diversity and inclusivity. My vision is that in five years, we will have realized this brand and reputation as a reliable partner to help analyze problems and find solutions to address emerging challenges that can benefit from Engineering and Geoscience expertise. This notion of collaboration should inspire and excite all of us, as we see the potential for our collective efforts to make a significant impact.
My vision of EGBC is to become a more diverse and inclusive organization with registrants and volunteers from a broader variety of practice areas, educational and cultural backgrounds, including emerging areas.
In five years EGBC will have established an effective and synergistic partnership with the BC Society of Engineering and Geoscience (BCSEG). Our organization will work closely with other regulators within the province (such as Applied Science Technologists & Technicians of BC) and outside of BC on shared initiatives toward the common goal of protecting the public and our shared environment.
For the Board to achieve its goals and meet its fiduciary responsibilities, the Board has identified the need for diverse voices on the Board, with a blend of the following skills and competences: leadership, financial literacy, risk management, human resources, strategy, regulatory understanding, governance, and technical proficiency. Please highlight the areas of strength you bring to the role.
I possess suitable competencies and skills to carry out my fiduciary responsibilities as a Board member effectively. I have been in several leadership positions in my professional career, my private life, and community service. I am completing my first term on the EGBC Board. During this time, I have chaired the governance committee and served as a member of the audit committee. I have been in three leadership roles at the University of Victoria (Associate Dean, Professional Programs, Director of Software Engineering, and Acting Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programs). I have also had financial oversight, human resources management, and strategic planning responsibility in these roles. I deeply understand risk management and regulation due to my professional activities and academic research interests in software systems safety and security engineering. I have extensively published on this topic and collaborated with industry partners, including regulators. I practice in the area of Software Engineering and most of my work is on medical and healthcare applications that are safety and security-critical. I am one of two co-authors of the first EGBC practice guideline in Software Engineering on safety-critical software.