Friday 15th November 1996, Windsor, UK - President of the 15,000-strong Australian Computer Society, Tom Worthington, is pushing for greater cooperation between the world's IT societies to help maximise the benefits of the Internet.

Fig 1: Meeting Participants at end of day1, including Presidents of BCS, ACM, IPSJ, GI, CEPIS & ACS

Mr Worthington, who is well-known in Australia for his commitment to the Internet as a business and communication tool, is meeting in the UK with the presidents of British, US, Japanese, German and European IT societies to discuss closer cooperation on the legal and operational challenges of the global use of the Internet.

Fig 2: Tom Worthington at Windsor Castle

The agenda also includes ways of harmonising national procedures for the licensing and certification of IT professionals.

Mr Worthington believes that information technology is a global business and said closer cooperation between national IT societies could help foster world trade in this growing industry sector.

"We are ahead of most of the world in use of the Internet. However cooperation is needed between nations to turn what is a anarchic system into something which can be used for regular commerce, education and entertainment.

"I believe the ACS has a significant role to play in leading that cooperation internationally," he said.

"As Australians, we tend to sell ourselves short and take our accomplishments for granted. As an example, when invited to prepare a presentation about the ACS and the issues for the meeting, I routinely prepared an on-line presentation using links to the Society's Home Page. However the ACS appears to be the only body which has in-depth material on-line."

After the meeting in Windsor UK, Mr Worthington will travel to Cambridge for meetings with IT researchers at the University of Cambridge and various commercial research centres.

On Friday 22 November 1996 he will give a short presentation on Encryption & Electronic Commerce in Australia, to the Security Group of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

Mr Worthington will report on his UK visit with a web slide show to open the conference "Information Systems: Driving Radical Change", on 3 December 1996 in Sydney. This is followed by the Society's 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner at the Maritime Museum in Sydney that evening.

This media release is located at http://www.acs.org/news/twuk1.htm

ENDS

Media Enquiries:

Tom Worthington, ACS President, in UK 12-27 Nov. Phone: 0374 171238, International: +44 374 171238, Email: tomw@acslink.net.au

Caroline New, Caroline New Public Relations, Tel: +61 2 630 2108, Mobile: 0411 889 456, Email: cnew@acslink.net.au

See also:

• Photo of Meeting Participants at end of day1, including Presidents of BCS, ACM, IPSJ, GI, CEPIS & ACS: small, medium, and large format
• Photo of Tom Worthington at Windsor: small, medium, and large format