Abstract. With digitalization and with technologies such as software, data, and artificial intelligence, companies in the embedded systems domain are experiencing a fundamental shift in how they develop, deploy, maintain and evolve their systems. Also, dimensions such as how to align with partners for innovation and new value creation, as well as models for how to monetize this value change dramatically when physical systems are increasingly being complemented with software services, data-driven offerings, and digital products. This talk explores the opportunities that come with continuous deployment of software and how companies in the embedded systems domain can benefit from data collection and feature experimentation practices in the transition from traditional towards digital companies. The talk focuses on the changes associated with processes and ways-of-working, but also new engagement models for value creation and monetization. To illustrate the transition, the talk provides concrete examples based on action-oriented research conducted in close collaboration with companies in the the embedded systems domain.

Bio. Helena Holmström Olsson is a professor of Computer Science at Malmö University, Sweden and a senior researcher in Software Center (software-center.se). Her research interests and expertise include engineering aspects of AI systems, data driven development practices, digitalization and digital transformation, and software and business ecosystems. She is the supervisor of several PhD students in the area of data driven development and AI engineering, focusing in particular on the business and organizational implications of AI deployment, and she has a well-established and continuous collaboration with the European software-intensive embedded systems industry.
Her research is published in high-quality software engineering journals and conferences and she is program chair for the “2nd International Conference on AI Engineering - Software Engineering for AI” (CAIN) 2023. Helena is a fellow member of the International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) and a board member of Malmö University, Sweden.

Abstract. There have been rapid recent developments in automated software test design, repair and program improvement. Advances in artificial intelligence also have great potential impact to tackle software testing research problems. In this keynote we highlight open research problems and challenges from an industrial perspective. This perspective draws on our experience at Meta Platforms, which has been actively involved in software testing research and development for approximately a decade. As we set out here, there are many exciting opportunities for software testing research to achieve the widest and deepest impact on software practice. With this overview of the research landscape from an industrial perspective, we aim to stimulate further interest in the deployment of software testing research. We hope to be able to collaborate with the scientific community on some of these research challenges.
There is an ICST 2023 keynote paper related to this tutorial. The tutorial talk will be given by Mark Harman. The paper is by Nadia Alshahwan, Mark Harman and Alexandru Marginean. Thanks to the many Meta engineers, managers and leadership for their assistance, support and work on deploying automated software testing and improvement techniques.

Bio. Mark Harman is a full-time Research Scientist at Meta Platforms in the Instagram Product Performance team, working on software, engineering automation. He was previously in the Simulation-Based Testing (SBT) team at Meta, which he co-founded. The SBT team developed and deployed both the Sapienz and WW platforms for client- and server- side testing. Sapienz grew out of Majicke (a start up Mark co-founded) that was acquired by Facebook (now Meta Platforms) in 2017. Prior to working at Meta Platforms, Mark was head of Software Engineering at UCL and director of its CREST centre, where he remains a part time professor. In his more purely scientific work, he co-founded the field Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE) in 2001. He received the IEEE Harlan Mills Award and the ACM Outstanding Research Award in 2019 for his work, and was awarded a fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020.

Abstract. Bots are applications that can react to various external stimuli, such as events triggered by tools or messages posted by users, and perform automated tasks in response. They often include conversational capabilities to interact with end-users through textual messages in the same communication channels as their human counterparts. Bots are widely used in various domains, including e-commerce, customer service, and education. Software development is no exception: bots can play a significant role in taming the complexity of software projects by automating repetitive tasks and communicating the outcomes back to stakeholders, designers, developers, and end-users. The recent advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence— which led, for instance, to tools like ChatGPT and Bard— bring new opportunities and challenges to bot usage and development. In this talk, we will discuss the current role of bots in software engineering, best practices for (chat)bot development, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Bio. Mairieli Wessel is an assistant professor at Radboud University, The Netherlands. Upon receiving her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of São Paulo (USP), she was awarded the Best Brazilian Ph.D. Thesis on Software Engineering in 2021. Her research interests include software engineering (SE) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Recent projects include the development of tools and strategies to support open-source software communities and the design of bots and chatbots.