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"WYBCS 50th Anniversary Jubilee Dinner"
Date: Friday 7th September
Time: 19.00 for 19.30
Venue: the Met Hotel, Leeds, LS1 2HQ
Speaker: Dr. T. William Olle
Background
Our guest speaker at the dinner was Dr T William Olle who talked about "Eight Significant Events in the 50 Year History of Computing" based on his fifty year involvement on different levels and in different facets of computing.
After Dinner Speech Summary
The history of computing is relatively short compared with that of any other area of human knowledge, be it science, engineering, medicine, law, or accounting. On the other hand, the development of the field has been meteoric and computing now occupies a position as a major employer of professional persons, a major facet of industry and a body of knowledge to be disseminated at educational institutions and used - hopefully as a benefit to mankind.
To have a broad perspective on the history of computing for the purposes of education, it is informative to review something like a fifty year period and to identify the really significant events which have paid a major role in developing computing technology as we see it and use it at the present time.
This paper is inevitably subjective, but is based on the author's fifty year involvement on different levels and in different facets of computing. The number "eight" is chosen, albeit arbitrarily, as a appropriate number for a subject such as computing.
Conclusion
The dinner to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary was held on 7th September at the Met, which was used as the venue for some of the meetings in the early years of the branch! We traced quite a few former committee members who were able to attend and also some who weren't. It was interesting to speak to people who had served on the committee in the past; without their work we wouldn't have been able to support computer professionals in the region for fifty years. Our thanks go to everyone who has helped this branch. Here's to the next fifty years.