ICT Pioneers and Leaders

Media Release

Fifty years ago SILLIAC, the first high-performance, automatic, stored program digital computer built in Australia within an Australian university, filled an entire room in the School of Physics. However this computer, the University of Sydney’s springboard to the Information Technology revolution, nearly didn’t happen! In the early 1950s Professor Harry Messel, then in his 30s and Head of the School of Physics, saw that computers were the way of the future. Back then the University of Sydney and government thought differently with the general consensus being that the Professor should ‘stick to his slide rule’.

Undeterred Professor Messel decided to independently fund the building of a computer within the School of Physics by establishing the Nuclear Research Foundation, now the Science Foundation for Physics. Sir Adolph Basser donated 50,000 pounds in February 1954 (later doubled to 100,000 pounds) to enable the computer, SILLIAC i.e. ‘Sydney’s ILLIAC’, was developed from the first automatic computer built at the USA’s University of Illinois. The first successful scientific calculation on the machine was performed on 4 July 1956. Sir John Northcott, Governor of NSW and Administrator of the Commonwealth of Australia officially opened SILLIAC on 12 September 1956.

Today the University of Sydney is pioneering leading edge ICT research. Some of the areas in which the School of Information Technologies at Sydney provides research leadership include multimedia computing and image processing, visualisation and high performance computing, advanced networks and pervasive computing, knowledge management and language technologies.

The Computing the Future Symposium and Celebration Events will be held on Tuesday 12 September and Wednesday 13 September 2006 and will highlight the groundbreaking research being pioneered today by the University’s ICT researchers. Featuring key ICT industry speakers and university ICT researchers ICT Pioneers and Leaders will discuss the future of information and communication technology including computer science, software architecture, optical fibre technology and the impact of technology on society. Some of the events will be held in the $40 million, purpose built building nearing completion on Cleveland Street to house the School of Information Technologies.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: Alison Muir, Media Officer, ICT Pioneers and Leaders:
Telephone: +61 2 9036 5194 Email: a.muir@physics.usyd.edu.au