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Birthday celebration
Iowa State to host computer symposium in honor of John Vincent Atanasoff
- If John Vincent Atanasoff were alive today, he probably would be flattered
by Iowa State plans to celebrate his 100th birthday next month.
In a salute to Atanasoff, the inventor of the electronic digital computer
and former Iowa State physics and math professor, ISU has organized the
International Symposium on Modern Computing Oct. 30-Nov. 1 in the Scheman
Building. Leading experts will discuss new computer technologies with the
potential to again change the world.
Carl Chang, professor and chair, computer science, and S.S. Venkata, professor,
electrical and computer engineering and holder of the Palmer chair, are
serving as co-chairs of the symposium.
Symposium attendees will participate in workshops within the broader areas
of computational intelligence, application-specific IT infrastructures,
and high-performance and grid computing.
"This will be a wonderful opportunity to focus the attention on John
Vincent Atanasoff and his invention, which still in many circles does not
receive the national and international recognition it deserves," Venkata
said. "Each of these workshops will bring in stellar academics and
faculty members from other universities.
"Because it is a celebration of Atanasoff, this particular program
of experts probably won't be repeated elsewhere. By the end of the conference,
it will be known to the world that he was indeed the pioneer for digital
computers," he added.
Plenary speakers at the symposium include Gordon Bell, senior researcher
for Microsoft; Douglas E. Van Houweling, president and CEO, Internet2 and
professor, University of Michigan; and George Strawn, chief information
officer, National Science Foundation and former professor and director of
the Iowa State University Computation Center.
Also attending will be Elena Poptodorova, Bulgaria's ambassador to the United
States. That country awarded Atanasoff, whose father was Bulgarian, its
highest science award. Atanasoff also was a member of the Bulgarian Academy
of Science.
During the Oct. 31 breakfast, a panel will discuss the court case, Honeywell
vs. Sperry Rand, that, in the early 1970s, legally established Atanasoff
as the creator of the first electronic digital computer. Panel members will
include Alice Rowe Burks, author of the recently published Who Invented
The Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History; Charles
G. Call, an electrical engineer and patent attorney who represented Honeywell
on what has become known as "the ENIAC case"; and John Gustafson,
principal investigator for Sun Microsystems Inc. and a former ISU professor
who helped build a replica of Atanasoff's original computer.
Registration is available online at http://www.ucs.iastate.edu/1103/jva-2003.htm,
or by calling ISU Conference Services, 4-5366. Registration fees increase
Oct. 1.
Around LAS
October 20 to November 2, 2003
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