Australians recognised on global ICT stage

Stan Beer
Thursday, 15 September 2005 20:21

IT People - People

Three Australians have been recognised in the latest awards and elections of IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing), a UN-sponsored peak professional body for ICT workers.

At last week's meeting of its general assembly in Gaborone, Botswana, IFIP conferred outstanding service awards to two Australian researchers, Associate Professor Anne McDougall of Melbourne University and Dr Helen Armstrong of Curtin University. The IFIP general assembly also elected incoming Australian representative and Australian Computer Society (ACS) vice president, Chris Avram, as a council trustee, elevating him to its key decision-making body.

As the global body for ICT professionals, IFIP represents over 400,000 ICT professionals from around the world through member associations like the ACS, which has 14,000 members.

Avram, who attended the meeting in Botswana, said Australian ICT professionals play an active role within IFIP and are highly respected on the world stage.

"Australians are prominent within IFIP's technical committees and working groups in areas as diverse as computer science, education, artificial intelligence and information security. These awards are given to prominent academics and industry leaders who make a significant contribution to the initiatives and activities of IFIP. Considering that only a handful of these awards is given out each year, it's very pleasing to see that Australians account for two of them," he said.