Professor Pierre-A Bobillier is the IFIP President with the longest period of service - from 1977 to 1983. Prior to his term he was heavily involved as IFIP Secretary and even today he continues as the Chairman of IFIP’s Statutes and Bylaws Committee. We believe he enjoyed his walk down memory lane in praparing for this interview as he shared the following: "[It] was indeed interesting to plunge back in my past IFIP activities. I realize again how much time and efforts I put in IFIP operations, organization and negotiations. I am glad to see how you have contributed to its fantastic development during the past years and I congratulate you for your numerous innovative ideas."
Delivery Co: During your tenure as IFIP President what, in your opinion, were the most significant IFIP developments and activities?
Pierre Bobillier: I was in charge as president since end 1977 (end of the Toronto Congress'77) and until the end of my second term in 1983. The main events or activities during this period are listed here under by year.
1978: - Launching of the first issue of "IFIP News". - First joint meeting of TC/WG Chairmen with FPC, APC and Executive Board. (Will then be repeated yearly), - Attendance to the UNESCO-IBI Conference on Strategies and Policies in Informatics as IFIP representative. I convinced several official delegations to present a paper proposing the UNESCO-IFIP co-operation. Following this conference recommendations IFIP established ICID (IFIP Committee on Informatics for Development).
1979: - Euro IFIP'79 (organized in London as a large European event between the IFIP Congresses 77 in Toronto and 80 in Tokyo-Melbourne), - Establishment of IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) which replaced IFIP TC 4.
1980: - First "Two-Continents Congress" as the IFIP Congress'80 was held in two consecutive weeks in Tokyo and Melbourne. A significant, non-trivial organization! An IFIP commemorative stamp was issued by the Japanese PTT.
1981: - Closing of the IAG Foundation in Amsterdam after many difficulties and in a very difficult climate, - Third World Conference on Computer Education in Lausanne, a success! , - Publication of the IFIP Information Bulletin No 15, first special issue replacing the earlier "IFIP Summary".
1982: - SEARCC was accepted as the first IFIP Regional Member, - A new idea realized with the objective to better inform our Member societies and the public at large: publication by the journalist Ken Owen of papers on Technical Committees 3, 6 and 10 reproduced in many Member Societies’ local journals.
1983 (last year of my second president term) was a very important year for IFIP. In addition to the IFIP Congress'83, the first in Paris (although the second world informatics congress, as the first such conference took place in Paris in 1959 before the creation of IFIP), several events took place such as: - First IFIP International Conference on Governmental and Municipal Data Processing, - CAPE'83 (First International Conference on Applications in Production and Engineering, - IFIP/SEC'83 (First IFIP Security Conference).
TC 11 (SECURITY) was established, two new Affiliate Members were admitted: FACE and IJCAII bringing the Affiliate Members to six. Publication of new articles by K.Owen on TC 2, TC 8 and IMIA and, a very significant event – the creation of the IFIP Newsletter with Dr. Jack Rosenfeld as Editor.
Delivery Co: Are you currently interested in IFIP? If so, are there any developments, which you like in particular and you feel should be further encouraged?
Pierre Bobillier: I am interested in IFIP developments, especially in Education, Communications and Human aspects, including Ethics, which is going to play an ever-increasing role in our society. This relates especially to the use and habits around the Internet. I am, however, less directly involved since my "retirement" from being the Swiss GA member and consider that new, younger people must grow in IFIP and contribute to its development with new ideas through its many committees.
Delivery Co: Are there any specific issues you find important for IFIP to address?
Pierre Bobillier: These include:
- Education at all levels, acceptance of ICT in all areas including developing countries.
- IFIP has to do everything possible to defend the correct utilization of all the means available today, to contribute to establish, support and make new international laws and rules accepted in all countries.
- As the only truly international ICT organization IFIP must continue to play its role among the other International instances
- The role of GA and TC representatives in their country and local community should be reminded and reinforced on a continuous basis. This is the main communication channel between IFIP and the field. These representatives, among other duties, are in charge of communicating information from their country to IFIP and from IFIP to their country. Member societies should be reminded of the important duties of GA representatives and officers before every election.
Delivery Co: Please share with us a few words about yourself at present - professional occupation, personal projects, hobbies...
Pierre Bobillier: Being retired in 1994 brought me the long awaited time and freedom of selecting those activities most appealing to me such as participation to professional associations, conference organizing and attending, article writing, etc..
I worked for several years in the Committee for Future Research Policy of the Swiss Science Council where I contributed, among others, to two projects which I hope will be pursued: - Education and Research in Legal aspects of ICT in Swiss universities - Status and possible improvements, and - An Interactive System for Swiss Research projects where small and medium businesses could find quickly information on research projects and activities relating to theirs. My many years of IFIP involvement have no doubt helped me in these activities where international views are obviously essential.
I have been engaged for many years in several Swiss committees such as SARIT (Swiss Association for Researchers in Information Technologies), the SVI/FSI (Swiss Federation of Information Processing Societies), the Swiss Committee for IFIP (whose members are our TC delegates), the Swiss Informaticians Society and its Suisse romande section where I chair the activity planning committee. Some recent events were on Digital signature, E-voting, Knowledge Management and e-learning.
With my colleague Raymond Morel (Swiss GA member and TC 3 Vice-Chairman) we have pushed energetically during the last few years for a better government initiative, planning and support at country level for the improvement of education and use of ICT in the primary and secondary schools. Things have fortunately been moving recently and could, hopefully, improve our position among the other nations.
On the personal side, I stay in e-mail contact with many people around the world. I like reading (for example T.Clancy, J.Grisham, F.Forsyth, E.Topol, P.Ouelette, etc..), have resumed playing tennis after 12 years interruption and I enjoy now playing as much as possible both outdoors and indoors. Some skiing, when snow allows, and sailing on my dingy in good weather fill the time left by my family -- 3 grown-up children and 6 grandchildren -- and the maintenance and repair of the house which keeps me somewhat busy. It is always stimulating to understand how things work and how to dismount (and hopefully remount) them!