Chasing the future: IBM's uber geek

Beverley Head
Friday, 02 September 2011 09:43

Glenn Wightwick began his adventures in computing at the age of 10 when he started tinkering on an old DEC PDP minicomputer that had been donated to his school. It wasn't connected to a screen - just a printer, which spooled out page after page of programming or results.

Wightwick's first programme converted degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit; he pinned up the printouts on his bedroom wall and was hooked.

Today - after a lengthy spell running IBM's local development laboratory - he's director of IBM's recently established Global R&D laboratory based in Australia, chief technologist for IBM Australia and an IBM distinguished engineer. Last year he was appointed an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Wightwick is also a great communicator - one of that rare breed that can delve into the big science and technology questions facing the planet today and make the issues accessible to mere mortals. All the while his passion for technology fizzes.

Born in Melbourne, Wightwick (45), is the son of an industrial chemist and the nephew of a zoologist, where family visits provided access to stacks of Scientific Americans, Mad Magazines and Monty Python tapes.

'As a kid my father was an industrial chemist in a food technology company employed making all sorts of different flavours and so we would get experimented on for weird and wonderful concoctions and taken to dad's company to see plant and equipment- those things felt normal.'