Information Technology deals with the design and use of computers and communications for solving a wide variety of problems. It is remarkable that computers, which were only developed about 50 years ago, are now used in such a large number of large organisations. We accept as part of our normal life that almost all bills and payments from governments and large organisations are printed by computers and that services such as Medicare or Bankcard are possible only because of the effective use of computers.

Although the applications of computers are diverse, from printing bills to controlling a blast furnace, they all rquire that information be stored in the computer and manipulated by computer programs. This suggests that some of the basic concepts in the use of computers are: 

• Systematic methods for instructing the computers to manipulate the information (algorithms and programming languages). 
• Organisation of stored information in computers (data structures). 
• Concepts in the design of computers (computer architecture) and computer networks (data communications and computer networks).

 In addition to these basic concepts, there are special techniques which are required in particular types of applications. Firstly, for example, in business applications, one needs to store large amounts of information. An insurance company, for instance will wish to store details of all policy-holders and will use this information (data) to print premium and other notices and to answer policy-holders' questions. Secondly, in scientific applications, the amount of information to be stored is usually much less, but the computations performed are more complex. Finally, the design of computers for use in household and office equipment such as cars, ovens, sewing machines and typewriters, requires a variety of skills.