-----Original Message----- From: owner-ifip_ga@ifip.or.at [mailto:owner-ifip_ga@ifip.or.at]On Behalf Of Plamen Nedkov Sent: terca-feira, 17 de Setembro de 2002 11:50 To: all Subject: [IFIP] GA 2002: Je me souviens
Ahoy IFIP!
On the way to the Promised Land, Moses who was a heavy stutterer, said " This way to Ca-Ca-Ca- ...." God heard him and ... made Canada! In the process of making, Gabriel, who was next to God, asked " But Lord, aren't you giving too much to the Canadians?". "Wait until you see their neighbors", God responded :-)
There could be a lot of variations to this joke, such as "Wait until you see their visitors" :-), but there is certainly one pivotal truth in the story - that Canada is endowed with natural beauty. So is Montreal and Quebec, and to prove this, we will later on post more photos to go along as "Impressions" with the IFIP GA 2002 Minutes at http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002.htm .
With this note we hope to give you some flavor of the discussions, decisions and highlights related to the Congress and the IFIP General Assembly, as we saw it in Montreal. The official Minutes would be available in mid October 2002. In addition, we have a lot of other valuable input from the Congress and GA participants which we intend to share in the weeks and months to come.
THE CONGRESS: The 17th World Computer Congress had a good program and a fine setting - no one was heard to deny this! There were some excellent speakers, among them KEIJI TACHIKAWA, President and CEO of NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile telecommunication operator, ABDUL WAHEED KHAN, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information and MIKE LAZARIDIS, President and CO-CEO of Research in Motion. One of the highlights during the Congress was the UNESCO-IFIP WCC 2002 Youth Declaration of 29 August [ref. http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/youth_declaration.pdf ]. This activity raised a lot of interest in the local press greatly due to the involvement of Justin Trudeau, the son of the late Canadian prime minister Trudeau. Here is what "The Gazette" wrote on 30 August: "Land-mine activists enlisted Princess Di, famine relief organizations got help from rock star Bono, and the World Computer Congress taking place in Montreal got a shot in the arm from Justin Trudeau yesterday". At its meeting on 3 September, the IFIP General Assembly considered this Declaration and resolved as follows: " IFIP welcomes the Declaration, commends the recommendations to its member societies and passes it forward as input to WITFOR and WSIS".
It would also be fair to say that some Congress participants expected a CD with the complete set of proceedings and to have the proceedings accessible on line. Some of the Canadian dignitaries for the Opening ceremony could not come and were represented by their deputies and Julie Payette's keynote address was cancelled. At the General Assembly, a preliminary report suggested that there was an overall attendance of over 900 persons but the actual number of paying participants appears to have been significantly lower.
The IPC and OC Chairs delivered their preliminary reports at GA and were thanked for all their hard work. A final report is expected soon and would be reported at Council and GA 2003.
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY: The IFIP GA conducted its work immediately after Congress. Among the participants [ref. http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/attendance.pdf ] we were pleased to see:
*Alain Costes, French Deputy Minister for Science and Technology and Chairman of the Support Committee for IFIP Congress 2004 in Toulouse *Willis King, President of IEEE CS *Wolffried Stucky, President of CEPIS
The social program included a Reception of the French Embassy to Canada on 30 August, a Dinner hosted by our Canadian hosts CIPS and FIQ at the Canadian Space Agency on 31 August and an IEEE CS Reception on 1 September. On 2 September, an improvised "full-house" party was organized on the occasion of Plamen's 20th Anniversary with IFIP and was sponsored by J.C. Laprie and the Toulouse region [fine French wines], Z. Bubnicki [Polish brandy] and W. Grafendorfer [hotel room]. A special congratulatory letter from the President of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia was sent by messengers.
A nutshell summary of some major GA highlights follows:
***Elections*** Klaus Brunnstein [DE], [ http://agn-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/people/brunnstein/eng.htm ] was elected IFIP President for 2002 - 2004
Jean-Claude Laprie [FR] and Basie von Solms [ZA] were elected as Vice-Presidents. Niko Schlamberger [SI] was reelected and Dong Kim [KR] and Joe Turner [US/IEEE CS] were elected as Trustees. The new composition of the IFIP Council and Executive Board is available at http://www.ifip.or.at/bulletin/b_counci.htm
Before the elections, Klaus Brunnstein felt it appropriate to step back as IPC Chair of Congress 2004. Reino Kurki-Suonio [FI], the man who still holds the title "King of the Net" until the next Minutes reading exercise, was appointed as Chairman of the IPC for WCC 2004 in Toulouse.
***New IFIP Members*** GA admitted CITS and CCS as Full members. --The Croatian Information Technology Society CITS -- http://www.hiz.hr/CITA.htm -- was founded in 1975 and is an open, independent association for IT professionals, advanced IT users, faculties, research and development institutions, and IT producers. CITS is a self financed society with more than 1000 registered members and more than 800 company members. CITS was accepted as a CEPIS member earlier this year. --The Cyprus Computer Society (CCS) -- http://www.ccs.org.cy -- was founded in 1984 as a professional and independent non-profit organization of computer science and IT professionals. Its Board consists of 7 Members elected every two years by the General Assembly. Currently there are 452 registered members. It is a member of CEPIS since 1991and a member of ECDL since 1999.
***Technical issues*** Technical Assembly decided to establish a new Specialist Group on Entertainment Computing [ref. http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/sg_ec.pdf ]. This is the first major IFIP decision for a new technical area since the establishment of TC 1 on Foundations of Computer Science in 1996. Dr. Tak Kamae [JP], the TF Chair, was congratulated for all his efforts on behalf of IFIP.
Technical Assembly also established a new Task Force on IT and Sports [ref http://www.ifip.or.at/secretariat/corner/it_sports.pdf ]. The IFIP Executive Director was requested to contact persons who have previously shown interest in this area with the objective to form a group to champion this activity and to develop proposals for aims, scope, membership structure, organization and activities.
Other technical decisions relate to the development of a consistent IFIP publications policy for both printed and electronic distribution [ key guiding principles for such a publications policy were adopted] and the necessity to establish an IFIP "advisory" committee for future IFIP Congresses [though the functions and organization of such a committee remain to be investigated]. A set of actions related to the IFIP Digital Library project was adopted by GA, the main one being that the project needs to be synchronized and fully integrated into an IFIP general publications policy and mechanism for dealing with its publications output.
We have posted all TC and Member Society reports to GA 2002 which were submitted to us prior to the GA in electronic form at http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002.htm trusting that our members would be interested to review this information.
Three TC Chairs -- Giorgio Ausiello [TC 1], Brian Samways [TC 3] and Bernd Neumann [TC 12] -- attended their last GA in their current capacity and GA warmly thanked them for all their hard work. Giorgio will endeavor to organize a TC 1 electronic ballot to select his successor while Brian has already taken care of this - Jan Wibe [NO] was elected as the next TC 3 Chair during the last TC 3 business meeting. In the remaining months, Bernd aims to identify possible successors so as to organize elections.
During the whole of 2001, there were a total of 64 events with IFIP involvement while in 2002, as of 22 August, the number of IFIP events has increased to 78. [Pls refer to http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/amb_report.pdf for the Events statistics]. For the whole of 2002 some 30 IFIP titles are expected to be published by Kluwer, IFIP's principal publisher - [ref. http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/publ_report.pdf ]
GA members were impressed by the brochure and the preparations for the IFIP World Information Technology Forum [ ref. http://www.witfor.org ], scheduled to take place from 27 to 29 August 2003 immediately before GA 2003 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Conference will convene under the auspices of UNESCO. IFIP member societies are encouraged to visit the web site.
***Thanks*** Finally, the Delivery Co. wishes to express its thanks to George Boynton, the Canadian GA representative and our principal contact for the organization of the GA 2002 who, despite a tight budget, ensured the necessary resources for our meetings in Montreal. Some time ago George asked the Delivery Co. for two things - to be kept on the "jokes" list for ever and ever and to have a place reserved on our "Islands in the Stream". George, consider both requests granted :-) Here is your Island - http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/ga2002/imp6.jpg
As mentioned above, there are other important issues which we intend to cover in subsequent mails.
Servus,
The Delivery Co. - "Je me souviens"
P.S. - and here is a comment from one distinguished SC Holder and past TC Chair related to the influence of the Rolling Stones on Scottish folklore
"Re: [IFIP]Friday's special - What's up? Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 12:32:54 +0200
Your jokes get nicer and nicer. They contribute even to better understanding of English language. I have to admit that I didn't understand the joke at first since I knew an English word named "eve" (i.e. "the evening before the actual day") but I had never heard about "ewe"; it was considered by me as a misprint. But when I looked into the dictionary and found out the real meaning of "ewe" (!!!).... "
Would a knighthood for popularizing the English language follow?
-------------------------------- Plamen Nedkov Executive Director, IFIP Hofstrasse 3, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria Tel: +43 2236 73616 Fax: +43 2236 736169 http://www.ifip.org/