Brian Avery Westcott

Hall of Fame Inductee 1995

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Brian Westcott is one of the Canadian software industry's most important researchers. For more than 15 years, he has forged collaborative technology partnerships between the business and education communities in Western Canada, spurring the growth of the region's software development industry and the creation of new research institutions.

Today, as Senior Vice-President of Research and Development for ACTC Technologies Inc. of Calgary, Westcott develops new software processes and products to improve quality and productivity in the workplace. He created the software engineering laboratory at ACTC and initiated a new consulting and training business unit. Among his innovations, he introduced a software maintenance methodology based on high-performance work teams that increased productivity by a factor of four.

Through much of Westcott's career, he has been associated with the University of Calgary. Before joining ACTC Technologies in 1990, he was Associate Director of the Advanced Computing Technology Centre at the university, and built a university organization to develop software under contract. He also conceived a strategy for improving the quality of software developed in Calgary, including the creation of two Software Engineering Chairs at the university, together with new courses and facilities.

"My passion is for software quality and excellence, and I believe in going at it through the educational route," Westcott says. "I'm trying to persuade universities and colleges to get on the bandwagon and teach that approach to their students."

During the 1970s, Westcott was a pioneer in the use of computers in education. He designed and implemented a distributed computer communications system for the University of Calgary, the first such system to be used in production in Canada.

Westcott was born in Calgary in 1942. He holds a master of science in meteorology from McGill University, and a bachelor of science in physics from the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Canadian Software Quality Forum, and a member of the Infoport Committee of the Calgary Research and Development Authority. He is the Canadian representative to the International Federation of Information Processing Societies.