Can a computer program become conscious? Would it be a person?

The Blue Brain Project has recently made significant progress towards simulating the human brain on a supercomputer. They have already managed to simulate a rat’s brain.

Many neuroscientists and AI researchers have hypothesised that consciousness is not a structural phenomenon, but rather is software constructed during development that runs as a virtual machine on the brain’s hardware. This is supported by studies of hemispherectomy patients, who can manage to live a perfectly normal life despite missing half their brain.

What are the implications of this for the idea of what a person is? Do you think a brain program on a computer, in the presence of appropriate inputs, could develop into a normal human mind?